


a funny sort of life

by HomebodyNobody



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-08-03 15:10:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 47,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16328393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomebodyNobody/pseuds/HomebodyNobody
Summary: Clarke Griffin and Bellamy Blake keep running into each other. It's inconvenient. Clarke just wants to keep her head down at school, get through her classes, and spend time with her dying father. Bellamy just wants to keep an eye on his sister, make enough to get by, and graduate as soon as possible. Neither of them have time for sexual tension and yelling, but here they are. But they each have secrets, and things might change as they are revealed.





	1. the time of his life

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has taken me the lifetime of a kindergartner to construct and finally, here it is. Chapters get longer as they go on, updates on wednesdays.

Bellamy only meets her because she's got a hard forehead and two left feet. The beat pounds through the floor and the crowd seethes, bodies crashing together and moving up and down in sweaty unison. An unspoken energy rolls over the crowd, electrifying even the most timid of dancers. Bellamy isn’t timid, however — he's just bored. He’s been standing against the wall all night, watching Murphy strike out over and over again, annoyed that he’s wasting a perfectly good Saturday night in this shithole. His roommate brought him here under the pretense of finding some trouble, but even though Bellamy’s that type, all the girls here are either taken or look tough enough to kill him. 

He’s about ready to give up hope when he sees her, hands thrown up in the air, moving to the music, careless to who's watching. She's a swirl of blond hair and glittering fabric,  sequined shirt flashing underneath the dim light, moving with an almost wild beauty. There’s a tiara tangled in her curls that proclaims her the “Birthday Princess” and the sight is enough to make him smile. Maybe it's the lights and the smoke lingering in the air, but something comes over him and he forges out onto the dance floor, driven by the urge to get close to her. She turns and spins and the smile on her face is so wide he can barely breathe.

He hasn’t seen joy like that in a long time.  The next song starts with a driving beat and an angry guitar, and she's barely two feet away and Bellamy can almost touch her, needs to touch her, and she spins once more and -- and her nose collides squarely with his chest. The air leaves his lungs with a sharp  _ whoosh _ , and he grabs onto her arms to steady himself, her hands jerking to clutch his shoulders.

Her blue eyes fly up and he’s paralyzed. He memorizes her eyes as soon as they lock onto his, enough that he'd recognize them without the smudged black eyeliner or angry fire. "Watch where you're going, asshole!" she yells over the thudding beat.

"Where I'm going?" He responds, feeling the adrenaline in his chest start to sing in his lungs, "You ran into me, Princess!" For a moment, they hang onto each other, letting the club pound on around them. Bellamy begins to feel lightheaded, although he can’t tell why.

The girl starts to sway her hips to the music again. The annoyance starts to fade, and her face relaxes. "Damn straight, I'm a princess!" she yells, smiling now. Her eyes have lost her initial anger, and look a little glassy. She's drunk, probably. Not enough to forget him, but enough to forget that she was irreconcilably angry just moments before.  She leans close before he can stop her and says into his ear "So dance with me, peasant." Her voice is low and gravelly, sending a shock through Bellamy's stomach. She slides her hands up his shoulders and twists her fingers into the sweaty curls at the base of his neck; her fingernails scrape gently against his skin and before he can stop himself, he's letting his hands slide down her arms and around her waist and soon the rest of the room disappears and it's just him and this  _ girl. _ He doesn’t feel the rest of the crowd writhing around them, doesn’t mind the taste of bad beer in his mouth, doesn’t smell the stale smoke. All he can sense is her.  She smells like sweat and some sort of flowery perfume and her blond curls keep sweeping arcs through the air and they almost hit him in the face a couple times, but he doesn't care because the music is loud and the air is warm, and here, with this beautiful, anonymous girl with cornflower-blue eyes, he feels like nothing can touch him. Her hands wander from his arms, across his shoulders, down his chest and back around to his neck and he’s intoxicated with her touch. Time seems to melt away, and all he can think is how utterly  _ good _ all of this feels. The colored lights cut through the humid room and set an ethereal glow over everything, and he feels  _ incredible _ . 

Soon, too soon, he thinks, the singer is saying goodnight and the lights flip on and the crowd is pouring out the doors. He loses her in the exodus and stumbles out onto the sidewalk, drunk on cheap beer and the smell of her skin. He pauses on the sidewalk, the cold air chilling his bare arms and setting his hair on end, searching for his friend. Murphy saunters out of the bar, obviously smashed, but carrying Bellamy's jacket, and he grabs it, shrugging the worn leather over his sweaty shoulders. The biting air outside the club breaks the spell the night had over him, and suddenly, he feels his own weight bearing down on him.

Murphy stumbles and Bellamy catches him, trying to avoid the practically toxic alcohol fumes on his breath and struggling to keep him upright. He's about to give up looking for the girl when he spots her under a streetlamp, talking to some others -- probably the girls she came with. He props Murphy against a wall and tells him sternly not to move and, against his better judgement, walks over to her.

He stops short a few feet away, realizing that he has no idea what he's about to say to her.  His heart is in his throat (he hasn't had butterflies since high school. What the  _ hell _ is this girl doing to him?), and he's about to turn and just give it up, when her voice -- too low, for a girl that looks like that -- stops him in his tracks. 

"Hey!" she says, and her voice is even more hoarse from screaming along to the lyrics with the crowd. He turns to look at her, and her face is flushed and practically glowing underneath the streetlamp. Bellamy feels some long-ignored feeling swelling in his chest, something he can’t name. He smirks a little. With her curly hair frizzing out from where it’s braided behind her ear, catching the light like a halo, she really does look like a princess. She has her arms crossed over her chest, and he notices she's wearing denim shorts and only a thin purple hoodie over her sparkly shirt. 

"Hey yourself," he says, and his voice is hoarse, too, but it's already so low that it doesn't make much difference. She steps closer to him and his pulse catches a little bit when he gets a whiff of that perfume again. He doesn’t even try to keep his eyes off her lips. 

She apparently has that in mind, because she intertwines her fingers through his -- they're small and slender and pale against his olive skin -- and stands on her tiptoes, barely closing the height difference. "Thanks for a good, time, peasant," she says, biting her lip and smirking and  _ God _ , that isn’t fair. 

“Anything for your highness,” he whispers against her lips, and then they’re kissing, strong and a little rough. It’s electric, in a way he hasn’t felt before. He drops her hand and slides his arms around her waist and she tastes like sharp fruit and something alcoholic. He’s trying to figure out if he can afford to call Murphy an Uber when there’s the sound of a body hitting pavement and a sharp “FUCK” from behind him.He drops his head and sighs as she pulls away. 

The girl sinks back on her heels and hides her snicker behind a hand, and Bellamy is seriously about to kill his roommate. “Ow,” Murphy moans. “Bellamy!” he tries to pick himself up again and only succeeds in landing on his ass again. “Fuck.”

Reluctantly, Bellamy lets her slip from his arms and goes to help his friend off the pavement. When he turns back around, Murphy's arm slung around his shoulders, she's walking away behind her friends. "Hey, Princess!" he calls,  and she turns around, still walking backwards. "You know mine, so what's your name?"

He knows it's a long shot, that all she has to do is turn back around and catch up with her friends and he'll never see her again, but she laughs and calls back "It's Clarke!" before jogging away.

He feels a smile stretch across his face -- the first in a long time.  

 

 

Bellamy wakes up with a hangover (not as bad as Murphy’s) and her name coursing through his brain. He calls his sister, confirms that he’s helping move her in tomorrow, makes breakfast for his roomates, takes a shower, does everything he can to get her out of his head. Miller, his other roommate and the closest thing he has to a best friend, stumbles out of his room at noon, rubbing his eyes and looking at him questioningly over the sparklingly clean kitchen counter.

“Dude,” he groans, “What the fuck did you and Murphy do last night?” He takes another beleaguered look around their small living room, taking in the spotless floors and fluffed couch cushions. Bellamy cleans when he’s stressed, something he developed in high school and never really talks about. “Bellamy,” Miller says, “Is this about that girl?”

Bellamy curses Murphy for telling him. “What girl?” he asks, attempting nonchalance. Miller shakes his head and grabs his uniform off the pile of (folded) laundry on the couch. 

“Whatever you wanna believe man,” he mutters, pulling the red polo on over his bare shoulders and snagging the baseball cap from the rack near the door. He shrugs into a black jacket and then stops. “I’m just saying, there’s one Clarke on campus, and her mom is the Dean of Students.” 

“Fuck, Abby Griffin is her mom?” Bellamy’s relationship with Student Director Griffin is less than optimal. It would be better, of course, if she would approve his application for more financial aid. It pisses him off that a woman sitting on that much money feels entitled enough to deny him and his sister access to higher education. “Are you sure? How do you even know it’s her?”

Miller holds up a hand. “Just google her, okay? I’ll see you tonight.” 

Bellamy casts a glance at his laptop, sitting closed on the table, mocking him. When he does eventually give in, he finds that Clarke Griffin is indeed Birthday Princess Clarke from the night before. He knows her type, perfect and privileged and not knowing jack about the world. Probably in a sorority and definitely not worth the effort. Shit, and he could have liked her. 


	2. her roommate's brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke gets a surprise on move-in day. Things... don't go well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the second installment!! lmk if y'all like it remember comments are the currency of the fic world!! I really enjoy ur thoughts!!

Clarke only meets him because she left moving in to the last possible day. If her parents had the foresight to trust her, if she hadn’t been caught up in her own moping, if she hadn’t let her lease lapse, if she’d made it into an house before first semester started, she wouldn’t even be in the dorms. But everything went to shit in August and, dreading the return to crowded living and communal bathrooms, she refrained from moving in the weekend before the dorms were flooded with freshmen. So now, here she is, carrying battered cardboard boxes through halls filled with excited giggles of barely-even-eighteen year-olds and trying not to bump into anyone. 

The noise isn't helping the wicked headache still pounding behind her eyelids (an argument with her mother the night before was still making itself known), and she thanks whatever gods there may be that she only has five boxes of stuff compared to the ten or twelve she sees some freshman girls hauling up and down the cement stairs.

The door to her room is already propped open with what looks like nunchucks (she's a little scared to ask) and she waddles inside, dropping the last two boxes on her thin mattress. She turns to inspect whom she assumes is her new roommate, and stops dead. 

It's him. A blue and grey baseball shirt instead of a black leather jacket, hair combed back neatly instead of loose and curly, but  _ him _ nonetheless. Clarke’s heart skips in her chest as she recognizes the sharp cut of his jaw and the powerful stance of his shoulders. He has freckles. The club was too dark to notice them, but here, they stand out against his tanned skin under the harsh fluorescents. Clarke’s fingers itch for pencil and paper.

His brown eyes lock onto hers, and he nearly drops the lamp he's holding. She may be wearing a sweatshirt and a ponytail instead of that outrageous silver top and hairstyle that Raven had coaxed her into, but she can tell from the way his eyebrows raise incredulously that he recognizes her. 

Neither of them say anything for a long moment, and Clarke wonders why she feels so awkward. It's not like they hooked up and she had to sneak out of his house on Saturday morning. They danced, they flirted, they kissed -- she walked away. So why does it feel like this? Like they both came incredibly close to something great, and they threw the chance away?

She barely even knows his name, so why does it already feel too late?

He clears his throat to say something, but, before he gets a chance, a girl whirls through the door carrying a cardboard box overflowing with clothes. "Hey, Bell, I told my roommate I'd bring the mini-fridge but that thing is fucking heavy do you think --" she stops short when she notices  Clarke standing stock-still on the other side of the room. 

"Oh," she says, "Hi. You must be Clarke. I'm Octavia." She holds out her hand. "This idiot is my brother, Bellamy." 

Clarke takes her hand and shakes it firmly. "I know," she hears herself saying, "We've met." 

Octavia raises her eyebrows and drops her box on the bed. “You know each other?”

They’re both lost for words, but it doesn’t matter because Octavia is already turning to face Bellamy, who is now looking a bit like a goldfish, still holding the blue plastic lamp. "Why didn't you tell me?" she chastises him. 

"I didn't exactly know, O." He says, and his voice is oddly tight, restrained. 

Both Bellamy and Clarke brace themselves for the inevitable "So, where did you unintentionally meet, anyway?" but it doesn't come, because Octavia is simultaneously asking Bellamy to run back down to the car and haul up the mini-fridge and tying her dark brown hair back into a ponytail. Bellamy takes one last glance at Clarke and exits the room as quickly as possible without drawing to attention to himself.

Clarke huffs out a sigh and turns back to her boxes, contemplating the horror of unpacking. She considers the empty cinder block wall, wondering if the RA would freak if she sketched a couple things. Blank walls remind her of hospital rooms and long, anxious afternoons. Bellamy comes back a few minutes later, carrying a hulking box, and brushes past her awkwardly. The smell of him cues memories of that Friday night -- and she suppresses a shiver as she remembers what his lips felt like against hers.

Soon, she hears Octavia leave the room, and takes her chance. Bellamy is bent over, trying to fit the mini fridge in the small space between the two desks, and Clarke admires the view before she takes a deep breath, opening her mouth to speak.

Bellamy cuts her off before she gets a chance. "Don't go there, okay. " He stands up and turns to face her. His eyes are dark and cloudy, something like regret swimming underneath. "We don’t even have to talk about it. It was one night, you're living with my sister. End of story." His face is stone. His words hit her like a punch to the stomach, but she can't help but feel like he knows something she doesn’t. 

Clarke feels her hands ball up into fists. This is stupid. She’s had a shitty day and she was hoping that something could have come out of the hot guy from her birthday, the one light in an otherwise dark and draining weekend. She needs something to be pissed at, and he’s right there.  Her words are falling out of her mouth before she can stop them. 

"Of course." Her voice is cold and steely. "I was just about to say the same thing." She purses her lips, sighs, like she's bored. "Not in so many words -- " the muscle in his jaw twitches, "but no problem." She cocks her head at him, lets a little mean-girl smirk perch on her face. All those years of getting picked on have finally paid off. "No magic. Just alcohol and a trick of the light." There's a pause, and she looks him up and down. "You're not my type, anyway." She swears she sees his face tighten, almost imperceptibly. She smiles one more time, returns the feeling that she knows something, too, and turns back to her boxes, setting about placing her medical textbooks on the shelf above the shitty little IKEA desk. 

She feels like she's won.

Octavia steps back into the room, carrying yet another box. She looks between the two of them, Bellamy, standing there, jaw clenched, staring furiously at Clarke's ponytail. Her roommate is sorting through cardboard boxes and folding things neatly, smiling smugly. The room feels like it's just dropped three degrees. 

Bellamy flexes his hand a couple times and speaks slowly to his little sister. “That the last box?” She nods, dumbfounded at this sudden and hostile shift in dynamic between brother and roommate. Bellamy leans down and grabs his scuffed leather jacket off the floor. “Call me if you need anything, O.” His eyes never stop glaring a hole through Clarke’s back as he kisses Octavia’s forehead and leaves the room briskly.

Octavia drops the box on her bed and turns to face Clarke, eyebrow raised skeptically. “What the hell did you do?”

Clarke straightens and looks at her. “What,” she asks, “Is he not usually so taciturn and grumpy?”

Octavia rolls her eyes. “Well, yes,” she says, and Clarke smirks. “But normally my brother never gives up a chance to hit on a pretty girl.”

“So?” Clarke still hasn’t looked up from where she’s folding her things, and she’s running out of clothes to put in drawers. 

“So?” Octavia plops down on her bed and folds her legs up onto the flimsy mattress. “You obviously know each other, so what happened?” Clarke stays silent. Octavia smiles. “Did you sleep with him?”

Clarke jerks her head up indignantly. “No!”  _ Almost _ , a tiny voice reminds her,  _ You wanted to.  _ She tells herself to shut up. Octavia grins like she knows her roommate is lying and drops the subject.

 

 

Bellamy won’t stop checking up on his little sister. He drops by several times in the next few days, almost exclusively when Octavia  _ isn’t home _ . His face always sours whenever Clarke opens the door, and she starts to dread the knock that heralds his arrival. It’s a couple weeks into first semester when Clarke finally snaps. It’s 11 PM (he always stops by after his shift at the bar. Clarke has to remind him that some people actually sleep) and she’s attempting to study for her first major test when the knock comes.  

Clarke ignores it for as long as she can, but eventually swings her legs off the bed, wincing as her bare feet hit the cold linoleum. She pushes her curly hair up into a messy bun and swings open the door. 

Bellamy stands there with his hands shoved in his pockets, and his eyes narrow when he sees Clarke standing there. “Is Octavia home?” 

She sighs. “No.”

He grits his teeth. “Then can you tell me where she is?”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “She’s out with Lincoln.”

Bellamy’s face tightens at the mention of Octavia’s boyfriend. Clarke doesn’t know much about the guy, only that he’s a senior and studying zoology. And that Bellamy hates him. “Again?” he asks.

Clarke rolls her eyes. “Your sister is eighteen, Bellamy. She’s going to date boys.”

He smirks. “I don’t have to like it.” He looks at her, like he wants her to share in the joke.  

“You shouldn’t be so possessive of her, Bellamy.” Clarke says, refusing to go along with overbearing, older-brother attitude. “You’re not her dad.” His face shuts down completely, all sense of humor gone. She keeps pushing.“You know she’s never home when you’re here because she’s avoiding you, right?” That much was true -- Clarke told Octavia whenever Bellamy came looking for her, and the younger girl had made it a point to be out of the dorms as much as possible.

“Octavia’s not avoiding me, ” Bellamy says, and there’s an anger in his voice now.

“Yeah, she is,” she says, on a roll now. “It’s probably because you’re an overprotective asshole,” Clarke says. She’s tired and mentally exhausted and his face is just  _ so irritating _ . 

“I’m not overprotective,” he growls, crossing his arms over his chest. The movement makes his the muscles in his shoulders shift under his jacket, and she definitely tries not to notice. 

“You track her every movement like she’s a wayward little kid. You’re not her keeper. Just let it go.” 

Something in Bellamy breaks. “You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about, princess.” 

Clarke scoffs. “And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?’ He opens his mouth to respond, but the spark of anger in his eyes flickers out, like he’s slammed down a wall, drawn a line he won’t cross. Tired of waiting for an answer, she sighs.“Go to hell, Bellamy.” 

She goes to close the door, but Bellamy’s hand shoots out to stop it. “Why do you hate me so much, anyway? Why do you have to be so difficult when I’m just looking for my little sister?” He’s almost shaking with anger. Unfounded, in her eyes. She just wants him gone, and doesn’t much care about what he thinks of her. 

She gives him a scathing look. “You’re not serious.” 

His expression contorts into one of stony finality, like he wants to be done discussing it. “Is this about that night because we agreed -- ”

“Agreed?” Clarke interjects. “You’re the one that shut it down without even hearing what I had to say!”

“Clearly, I didn’t need to.” he protests. His forehead wrinkles as he draws his eyebrows together, and she glares at it. His stupid freckles. “You’re living with my sister. That’s that. I’m done with this.” He spins on his heel and starts walking away.

“You could have been less of a dick about it,” she mutters. He freezes. 

“You know what,” he wheels around, almost shouting. “You’re just a shallow bitch who thinks she understands everything about everyone and demands respect she doesn’t deserve.” 

“That was uncalled for,” She shouts back. And then, to punctuate it, “asshole!”

“Screw uncalled for,” he calls back. “Don’t talk about shit you know nothing about.” With that, he’s gone. She slams the door behind him.  

Clarke plops back down on her bed and attempts to go back to her notes, furious and buzzing. but Bellamy’s goddamn face keeps invading her brain and she keeps zoning out, remembering his smile, and his hands around her waist, that night at the bar. One night, one boy. Next day, different boy. Different, irritating, inconsiderate, overbearing boy.  Eventually, she gives up studying and fishes her sketchbook out of her bag, hoping to distract herself. It works for a while, but soon, each line starts to share some resemblance to one of his messy black curls, or the sharp line of his jaw. 

She has the dignity to hate herself for it. 

Octavia slips in at 1 AM, looking relieved to find her brother absent from the hall. Clarke is still fuming. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Octavia asks, stripping off her skinny jeans. 

“Your brother is what’s wrong,” Clarke grumbles, stabbing her textbook with a highlighter.

“My brother is hot for you,” Octavia says, muffled, the top half of her body rummaging in her side of the closet. 

Clarke scoffs. “I doubt that. Your brother does nothing but snipe at me,” she says,

Octavia laughs as she emerges with her bathrobe and shower caddy. “It’s how he shows affection.” 

Clarke turns to respond, but the door is closing as Octavia disappears down the hall. “Yeah,” she says to herself. “Shows affection. Right.”

 

It’s several days before Octavia brings Bellamy up again. It’s a Friday night, and Clarke knows she should be going over her advanced anatomy notes, but she’s kneeling on her bed, sketching a night sky on the cinderblock wall instead. 

“So my brother’s roommate is having a party tonight,” Octavia says, twirling a pencil through her fingers. 

Clarke doesn’t turn from her drawing. “Why do I care?” She’s feigning apathy -- her heart traitorously picks up at the thought, and the first thought in her mind is of Bellamy’s hands, rough and tan and warm on her waist. She starts when Octavia speaks again.

“Because you’re looking for a chance to sleep with him again.” Octavia says casually. 

Clarke drops her charcoal between the bed and the wall with a start and curses. “What?” she asks incredulously. It had been six glorious days of silence on the whole subject, and Bellamy had finally stopped coming around at inappropriate hours. Clarke had also told her roommate to finally speak to her ‘goddamn brother already seriously he’s driving me nuts’ and now whenever Bellamy knocks, Clarke only has to take out her headphones to say goodbye. 

She hasn’t seen his face in a week. It has been fantastic. 

Octavia laughs and flips her hair over her shoulder. “Chill, honey. You know I’m right.”

Clarke glares at her. “First of all, I never slept with your brother.” Octavia scoffs, her green eyes sparkling with mischief. “Also, I’m not exactly dying to see him.”

“Why not?” Octavia asks, “I know you think he’s hot.” 

Clarke fights to keep her face neutral. “Please,” she says. “He’s decent, at least.” The flush creeping up her neck betrays her, and she can feel Octavia’s eyes on her back.

Octavia grins. “You totally think he’s hot.” 

Clarke pulls another piece of charcoal out of her desk drawer and turns back to her drawing. “We’re done with this conversation.”

Octavia goes back to her notes. “We’re going to that party,” she says, determined.

Clarke smiles, facing the wall. “If we have to.” 


	3. alcohol and regret (Bellamy's favorite things)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a tiny Asian man, Monty Green can hold his alcohol surprisingly well, which is something Bellamy finds out a couple shots later. The room is spinning , and he’s about three seconds from passing out on his own kitchen floor, but Monty is still going strong. Bellamy thinks he must have been gifted with some sick amount of tolerance because there’s no way a boy that small could scientifically hold that much alcohol. He glances around his living room. Jasper’s chugging something, Octavia is making out with Lincoln, and Clarke -- Clarke is dancing. She looks the same as she did that night in the bar. Hands up, hair loose, careless and free. She’s beautiful. For some irrational reason, it really, really pisses him off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> w-w-weLCOME TO THE SHITSHOW  
> remember to comment!! I love hearing what y'all have to say about this fic!!

For the record, Bellamy was against the party from the start. He hated crowds, and, on this particular day, Murphy. He’d tried to stop things before it got too far, but now he was crammed up against the wall, uncomfortably avoiding the hordes of people in his house. Miller had disappeared earlier in the day to “run some errands” and still hadn’t reappeared. 

He was only mildly annoyed about it until the cask of nearly-toxic moonshine came through the door. Apparently, the sophomores that lived in the basement were into some pretty serious stuff, and Murphy had been using Monty and his accomplice Jasper Jordan as his supplier for years. How they manage to continue making moonshine in their bathtub without being nailed by the landlord, Bellamy doesn’t know.

By 11 PM, it’s already dark, noisy, and loud, and there are too many sweaty bodies crammed into the place than is probably safe. Murphy can’t possibly have this many friends. Unless they’re just using him for an excuse to get drunk, and, based on the number of freshmen he sees, that’s the most likely explanation. Monty is pumping bad music through Jasper’s (equally bad) homemade sound system, and there are far too many people for Bellamy’s liking. 

He’s almost fine. On edge, maybe, a little anxious, sure. Social gatherings have never been his strong point. The usual strategy of standing by the wall with a beer and a sour expression has been working, so far.  And then Octavia shows up with Clarke, and everything goes downhill from there. 

He can’t really put into words the surge of emotions in the bottom of his stomach. It’s part annoyance, he thinks, maybe with a twinge of confusion and bemused exasperation. And buried in the bottom, a small bit of… arousal? He pushes the thought out of his mind and takes another sip of his beer, looking for Monty and his cask of moonshine. Alcohol. Alcohol will fix this.

For a tiny Asian man, Monty Green can hold his alcohol surprisingly well, which is something Bellamy finds out a couple shots later. The room is spinning , and he’s about three seconds from passing out on his own kitchen floor, but Monty is still going strong. Bellamy thinks he must have been gifted with some sick amount of tolerance because there’s no way a boy that small could scientifically hold that much alcohol. He glances around his living room. Jasper’s chugging something, Octavia is making out with Lincoln, and Clarke -- Clarke is dancing. She looks the same as she did that night in the bar. Hands up, hair loose, careless and free. She’s beautiful. For some irrational reason, it really, really pisses him off. He’s too drunk for this; he knows that, somewhere, but he hauls his ass off the floor anyway and stumbles over to her, lurching and unfortunately plastered. 

“Clarke!” He yells over the music, “Hey, Clarke!” He laughs, and she knows he’s drunk because it’s too loud and smells like Monty’s moonshine. 

She turns and puts a hand on his chest as he stumbles toward her; “Bellamy,” she says, with a warning in her voice, “You’re too drunk for this.”

The surge of emotion in Bellamy’s chest feels a lot more like moonshine and rage this time. “You’re a real bitch, you know that?” he laughs, and Clarke’s face goes wooden. He grabs her shoulder and she attempts to jerk it out of his grasp. He holds on, keeps talking even though he knows he shouldn’t. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t  you?”

She attempts to take a step away but his grip is strong, “What?” she demands, “You breathing Monty’s gasoline in my face?” Bellamy wonders how she knows his delinquent neighbors, and decides not to ask. Octavia has always had a knack for dangerous people. 

He laughs again, and it’s so full of sarcastic malice she shivers. “You just want me to struggle, is that it? You want the stupid little poor boy to chase after some princess he can’t have?” He doesn’t know where the words are coming from; they’re just dripping out of his mouth, a product of both alcohol and unresolved frustration. Misdirected anger at her mom, bitterness at her advantage and status. Maybe a little bit of sexual frustration in there, too. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” she cries, still attempting to break free of his hand. 

“You want me to dance,” he leers, “Dance for the little rich girl, is that it?”

Clarke pushes him away, rage filling her crystal-blue eyes. “What, so you hate me because of who my parents are?” the drunken arrogant smile on Bellamy’s face turns into a satisfied smirk, and she’s starting to wonder why she ever felt even remotely attracted to him in the first place. “What kind of biased, classist bullshit is that?” Her hands curl into fists.

“You’re a princess, Princess!” He yells over the music, “You have everything!” Clarke’s eyes begin to fill with tears, but Bellamy holds open his arms, gesturing with the flask in his hand, and keeps talking. “Your mom is the fuckin’ Dean of Students, Clarke! Your dad is some genius engineering professor with like a million dollars, and you come to the shittiest college in the state and go to house parties!” He takes another long swig from his cup and winces -- the stuff from Monty’s still really does taste like gasoline -- and just keeps pushing, not noticing Clarke’s expression. “What the hell is wrong with you, Griffin?” He laughs the last part, and he’s drunk and stupid and too plastered for this conversation. “You doing this to piss off your daddy or somethin?”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Blake,” she says, voice breaking. She jerks out of his grasp, and Bellamy watches her stomp away, dragging his sister off the couch. Octavia grumbles as she’s pulled away from Lincoln and into the kitchen.

Bellamy looks to Jasper, who’s swaying back and forth with a lampshade on his head. “What’d I say?”

Jasper giggles at him, and the last thing he remembers is the floor coming up to meet him at an alarming speed.

 

Bellamy wakes up sprawled out on the living room rug, dust tickling his nose. He winces and holds his head, which  pounds like the devil is dancing on his temples. Very slowly, he picks his head blearily off the carpet and looks around the room. Monty is curled up against the wall, cuddling a garden gnome (where exactly he got it, Bellamy doesn’t know), Jasper is asleep with his head lolling against a speaker, and Octavia is stretched out in front of the television. The room is a disaster zone. Red plastic cups are strewn across the floor, cheetos and chips have been crushed into the carpet, and he really hopes that isn’t what he thinks it is splashed up against the window. Bellamy sits up as slowly as he can manage. The world spins and goes blurry, and it takes him a moment to decipher the details of his surroundings. 

He grins. There is a suspiciously Clarke-shaped lump curled up on his sofa, hair spilling over the armrest. Miller stomps down the stairs in his steel-toed boots, pulling a jacket on. The noise has a ripple effect, and every single body sprawled across the room jerks awake, simultaneously throwing curses Miller’s way. 

He doesn’t look upset. “Y’all idiots deserve it.”

Clarke sits up and holds her head, groaning, and Bellamy throws a smile her way. All he gets back is a resentful glare. He didn’t think their last argument was that bad, so he files through his memory, holding his head, fighting the black smudge that obscures most of last night. He remembers something about Monty’s moonshine and him yelling about -- about -- shit. Clarke’s parents. He wipes his hands down his face and leans his elbows on his knees. Oh, he is so done for. 

He offers to make pancakes, because he knows Octavia will stick around, and that Clarke won’t leave without her. Also, he’s hoping he’ll win back something; his chocolate chip and blueberry pancakes are killer. Everybody settles down around the rickety old kitchen table. Monty and Jasper are still bleary-eyed and stumbling, and it takes them both a couple tries to get into their chairs. Jasper ends up on his butt on the floor. Monty laughs. 

Bellamy slides a plate in front of Clarke without a word, and she looks up at him with disdain in her eyes. She pushes it gently to the side and Octavia accepts it silently, picking up both pancakes and transferring them to her already heavily-laden plate.

Bellamy gets the message.  _ Peace Offering Rejected _ . 

Clarke stands and grabs her hoodie -- the same one from that first night, he notices -- off the back of her chair. “Hey, O,” she says, and Bellamy winces. That’s his nickname. Nobody calls his sister that but him. Clarke using it feels, well, wrong, but  Octavia barely looks up from her pancakes. “I’m gonna head back. Knock when you get home and I’ll let you in.” 

Octavia grunts in agreement, and Bellamy catches one last icy stare before she goes to collect her shoes from by the door. Bellamy purses his lips without meaning to, and Murphy catches his expression.

“Stone cold, bro,” he says, “I know that feel.”

The response is a chorus. “Shut the fuck up, Murphy.”

Octavia waits until the door shuts behind Clarke. “Bell,” she says, instantly accusatory, “What did you do?” Bellamy swallows.  Her eyes narrow. “Is this why she was so upset last night?” Bellamy looked down at his plate, running a hand through his messy dark curls. He shrugs. Octavia explodes. “She told me what happened, Bellamy! You brought up her parents, you asshole!” 

Bellamy keeps his eyes focused on his lap. “In my defense --”

Octavia cuts him off. “I never even talked about her parents,” she says, glaring at her brother, “You googled her, didn’t you?”

Bellamy sinks down lower in his chair. “O --” he starts, “Can we not do this --” 

She stands up, pushing her chair back with a loud screech. “Bellamy, for once, can you just be nice to one of my friends? Clarke is great and you --” her mouth tightens. “You ruined  _ everything! _ ” Jasper puts a hand on her arm, but she’s beyond comfort. She glares at the plate, at her brother, at the door. Frustrated, she picks up the plate and stalks out. 

Monty and Jasper look at each other, stifling laughter. Murphy rolls his eyes and just keeps eating his pancakes. Bellamy puts his elbows on the table and rests his head in his hands. “Fucking hell,” he groans. 

 

 

He spends the rest of his afternoon grading papers for the one class he TAs for ( Intro to World History), and playing Grand Theft Auto with more aggression than necessary. He can’t get Clarke out of his head, no matter how many animated characters he kills. The alcohol is making it severely difficult to remember exactly what he said to her -- all he remembers is a lot of shouting and scary, not-quite laughter and -- oh, shit. Clarke’s eyes filling up with tears. He made her cry. No wonder Octavia is so horrifically pissed at him.

After some thought, he realizes he doesn’t really feel that bad about it. Growing up wasn’t a picnic, not on a single mother’s budget, and what Bellamy said last night was nothing compared to the things he had to deal with all through school. Clarke really was a princess, if she couldn’t handle a couple of jokes slung around about her family -- something he was more than used to -- the princess needed to loosen up, learn how to take a joke. 

He wonders if she’s always been this uptight, or if this whole over-sensitive priss thing is a product of built-up, frustrated energy. Maybe she just needs to get laid. His brain responds with an image of her in his bed -- he shakes his head. No. Not thinking about that, thanks.

Around seven, his phone finally rings, and he picks it up apprehensively when he sees Octavia’s name on the caller ID.

“Hey, O,” he says, “You still pissed at me?”

“Who, me?” she answers, and yeah, she’s still pissed, because there’s a sarcastic bite to her voice that he knows all too well. “I’m not the one you have to worry about, asshole.” 

He knows she’s talking about Clarke, and, at this particular moment, he can’t be bothered enough to care. “Clarke never has to speak to me again, if she doesn’t want to,” he says bitterly, “It’s not like I’ll be devastated.”

Octavia curses at her brother. “Listen up,” she says, “If you ever want to see your precious JStor cap again you will get your ass over here and apologize within the hour.” 

He freezes. “You stole my fucking JStor cap?” he asks, and he can practically hear her grinning. 

“Hell yeah, I did,” she says, “and I will find a way to make it disappear if Clarke doesn’t hear the words ‘I’m sorry’ come from your mouth by 8 o’clock.”

Bellamy sighs, and knows his sister is as good as her word. She still has the marble collection she stole from Evan Thompson in the third grade. (He massacred her beanie baby collection on show-and-tell day with a pair of safety scissors.) “Fine,” he grumbles, “but don’t get any ideas. That hat better be intact when I get there.”

“8 o’clock, Bellamy,” Octavia says, and her smirk is audible. “Time is ticking.”

He trudges all the way across campus, hands shoved in his pockets, headphones blasting angry rap. Jaha Hall is packed with kids returning from classes and preparing to head out for the night. Bellamy ducks around the freshmen dashing through the halls, made-up sorority girls bouncing off his shoulders.

Octavia is leaning against the doorframe when he arrives, twirling a battered black baseball cap around her finger. “Good to see you here, big brother,” she says, smiling. 

He stares at his feet. “I’m sorry for fighting with Clarke,” he says through clenched teeth. Her smirk picks at his nerves,  and he refuses to take his eyes off his battered chucks. He thrusts his hand out for the cap. “Is that enough?”

Octavia folds the bill of the cap between her palms and laughs. “You should know better,” she mutters, and steps out of the doorway. 

His dark eyes go flinty as Bellamy glares at his little sister and steps reluctantly past her into the room. Clarke is leaning against the wall, sitting at the foot of her bed with a sketchpad resting on her knees. She jerks it up and out of sight when she notices his enormous form in the tiny room. 

“I’m guessing you’re here to insult me again,” she mutters bitterly, not looking up from her drawing.

“I’m here to --” he grits his teeth and takes a breath. “I’m here to apologize.”

Clarke stops sketching, pausing a moment before her clear, incredulous blue eyes flick up to his face. “Octavia coerced you into this, didn’t she?” Her voice is low and impatient.

Bellamy shuffles his feet and clears his throat. “Right, okay,” he mumbles, “Let’s get this over with.” Clarke stares at him expectantly.  “I’m sorry I insulted you,” he growls. Under his breath, he adds: “Even though you can’t take the real world.”

Clarke’s face turns to stone. She drops her sketchbook on the bed without a thought and hops off it to stand and face him. It’s an almost pathetic attempt -- she stands a good six inches shorter than him -- but the cruel anger in her eyes makes him hold his tongue.

“The real world?” she asks, and her voice cuts like steel. “You think I don’t understand the real world?”  Heat kicks up in Bellamy’s chest and he opens his mouth to fight back, but Clarke is already speaking. “ You think I’m a joke, is that it? Is that what my family is to you, some stupid goddamn joke?” She steps closer to him and rises on her toes a little, giving him a firm poke to the chest. He nearly falls backward onto Octavia’s bed, but Clarke doesn’t notice. “You think I’m some perfect little bitch, don’t you? Some ignorant, bratty, rich little Daddy’s girl?”

Bellamy crosses his arms over his chest, creating some space between them, forcing her backwards. The two stand in charged silence, staring each other down.  “That’s exactly what you are,  _ princess _ ,” he snarls, and his voice is cold as iron.

Clarke starts to say something, but pinches her lips together and slams both hands into his chest, unexpectedly shoving him backwards. Her voice, which had been steadily rising, is now suddenly quiet. “You don’t know shit, Blake.”

Her words shock him to a stop. Adrenaline and rage pounds through his body, and there’s a part of him screaming to fight, to yell until Clarke tells him exactly what she’s hiding, tells him why she thinks she’s so much better, explains why she thinks he’s  _ less _ than her. 

But she steps away, falls back to her seated position and avoids his heated gaze. A long moment of silence passes before he has something to say again.

“Is that it?” he challenges, “Is that all you’re gonna say?” Her silence only aggravates him, and he continues. “High and mighty princess,” he spits, “I should have known.”

“Get the fuck out, Bellamy,” Clarke says, and his name tastes like a curse in her mouth. He spins on his heel and stalks out the door, ripping his cap from a shocked Octavia as he crosses the threshold. 

He crams the hat down over his curls and stomps out of the building, anger roiling in his chest all the way back to his house.

God, she drives him  _ insane.  _


	4. roommate from hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s not an angry person. No, really, she’s not. Hating people isn’t something she does lightly. Clarke normally likes to stay neutral, sidelined, and she’s always been a peacemaker. Her dad used to tell her that there were only a few people in the world who did what she did -- always looked for the best in people.
> 
> But, Bellamy Blake.
> 
> She feels like she has a good reason on this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aHHHHHHHH IM SORRY   
> my life ... fell apart yesterday, and I forgot to post. But!!! here it is!!!

She’s not an angry person. No, really, she’s not. Hating people isn’t something she does lightly. Clarke normally likes to stay neutral, sidelined, and she’s always been a peacemaker. Her dad used to tell her that there were only a few people in the world who did what she did -- always looked for the best in people.

But, Bellamy Blake.

She feels like she has a good reason on this one. She’s barely known him for a month but, first impressions aside, she hates his guts. Never in her life has the mere thought of someone kicked up such a flurry of emotion. Before him, she can’t remember the last time she’d actually yelled at someone, let rage blur the edges of her vision and obscure her logic. Not since everything with her parents. 

But this time, she feels justified. He’s arrogant, selfish, assuming, ignorant, disdainful, and pretentious -- and he simple fact he didn’t even take a single  _ moment _ to consider what she’s been through, not to mention his classist, victimized attitude like  _ he’s _ the one being attacked here and -- 

“Clarke,” Octavia says, cutting through Clarke’s thoughts, “You’re muttering again.” Clarke’s mouth snaps closed; she hadn’t realized she was saying it out loud. 

She jerks her head up from her notebook and glances at her roommate. “I wasn’t muttering,” she says sharply. Octavia hasn’t looked up from her laptop, but Clarke can feel the flush creeping up her neck, embarrassed by the fact she’d been caught ranting, again.

Octavia rolls her eyes and slams her laptop shut, leaning back on her hands and staring at the older girl. “Clarke, If you’re that steamed about it, just talk to him.”

Clarke sneers and glares at the textbook in her lap. “If I never have to speak to your brother again, it’ll be too soon,” she says. She doesn’t have time for people like him, not after dealing with the same kind of bullshit all through high school.

Octavia sighs in frustration. “You’re being melodramatic,” she says, swinging her feet onto the floor. Considering her roommate, sitting across from her and looking, for all intents and purposes, totally miserable, Octavia wonders why Clarke, a girl with a freakish ability for compartmentalization and detachment, is letting a dumbass like Bellamy affect her so much. She is normally so logical and pragmatic (a quality that Octavia thinks must make having fun a lot more difficult), and seeing her so screwed up over one person is disarming, to say the least. 

After a moment, Octavia twists her dark hair into a bun, stands, and offers a hand. “C’mon,” she says, exasperation audible in her voice. “You’ve been stewing in your hate-filled juices for too long. Come to the dining hall with me, at least.” 

Clarke cuts her eyes to Octavia’s hand, accepting it after a moment of deliberation. “Fine.” 

“I just don’t understand why you’re so pissed at him,” Octavia says, an hour later as the two linger over bowls of ice cream.

Clarke stops, spoon halfway to her mouth, and looks at Octavia. “You’re not serious.”

Octavia bites her lip and stirs the mint chocolate chip in her bowl. “Okay, fine, I do get it.” Clarke takes another bite. “But it’s just because he doesn’t know,” Octavia insists, “If you explained it to him -- ”

Clarke cuts her off. “He would find some other way to find me petty and ungrateful.” 

Octavia lets out a breath. “Now you’re grasping.”

Clarke ignores her and leans forward over the table, gesturing with her spoon. “The point remains that he’s classist and close-minded,” she says, and shrugs.“I’m just saying, I don’t want to be friends with someone like that.”

Octavia smirks around the spoon in her mouth and responds with a measure of mischief in her voice. “I’m not talking about friends, Clarke.”

The glare she receives could freeze lava. “No.” Clarke’s voice cuts like a knife. 

Octavia throws herself back in her chair. “C’mon, Clarke!” She says, tired and a little irritated. “You can’t pretend there’s nothing between you two!” Clarke refuses to justify her comment with a response, mostly because Octavia isn’t wrong. Something about Bellamy sets Clarke on fire, and for now, she’ll keep the explanation at blind hatred. Octavia cocks her head and takes in Clarke’s unreadable expression. “I saw the way you two looked at each other on move in day.” she continues, her voice is lilting and dangerously soft. Clarke keeps her eyes on her ice cream. “Something happened, I know it.” 

The memory rises, unbidden, to her mind, and Clarke fights the smile growing on her face. She remembers the lights sweeping over the roiling crowd, the thundering beat and Bellamy’s hands hot on her waist, his breath in her ears, on her neck. There was something electric between them, that night. But the Bellamy she’d met that night was long gone -- he’d dissipated with the haze over the dance floor and gotten lost with the spell of the darkness. This Bellamy -- the one she knew now -- was coarse, gritty, and faded in the light of day. 

Despite Clarke’s best efforts, Octavia notices the odd look on her face and crows in victory. “I totally called it! Something did happen!”

Clarke ducks her chin and says quietly “It wasn’t a big deal. It doesn’t change anything.”

“It changes everything!” Octavia laughs, leans forward on her elbows. “Tell me!”

“Seriously, O,” Clarke insists, “It was nothing. Raven and Monroe and I went out for my birthday,  and he was there with Murphy. Nothing happened, okay?”

“My  _ brother _ was  _ out _ ?” Octavia says in disbelief. 

“Yeah,” Clarke says, “we went to see Eligius Crew at Polis. We --” She ducks her chin again, embarrassed, “We danced.” Her voice sounds embarrassingly soft, so she continues brusquely. “He kissed me, Murphy passed out, I went home.” 

“Be kind, rewind,” Octavia says, looking like she’s starting to malfunction from processing the information. “He kissed you? And you never thought to tell me this?” 

“It wasn’t anything,” Clarke insists. We were both kind of drunk, he was hot, it was my birthday. “I swear, I had no idea what he was like at the time.” Talking about it calls up the memory again, and she stands to put her dish away as to escape ridicule for the blush rising unbidden on her face.

Octavia pesters her for details all the way back to the room.“You  _ danced _ ? You got my brother to  _ dance _ ?”

Clarke unlocks their door and stares at her roommate with bemused incredulity. “He doesn’t normally dance?”

Octavia’s mouth is still hanging open. “Bellamy doesn’t really do… fun,” she says, still snickering, “Oh, I am never letting him live this down.”  Clarke’s eyes go wide and Octavia waves a hand dismissively. “Relax,” she says, “I’ll tell him Jasper told me. That boy is the shittiest liar I’ve ever met.” Octavia grins at her, open-mouthed. 

Clarke sighs and waves a hand, deciding she’s done with this conversation. “Yeah, yeah, okay. Whatever you want. Now leave me alone, I have studying to do.”

Octavia flops into her desk chair and picks up one of her textbooks. “You’re no fun.” 

Clarke pulls her highlighters out of her backpack. “Yeah, I know.”

____________________

“I think your brother is following me,” Clarke says as she slams the room to their dorm open, dropping her canvas messenger bag on the floor by the head of her bed and flopping onto the worn comforter. 

The deep chuckle she receives in answer sends a shock through her stomach. “What makes you say that?” Dear God, that  _ voice _ . Despite his enormous ego and stupidly ignorant tendencies, his voice is still irritatingly hot. 

Clarke jerks herself up, leaning on her elbows. Bellamy is sprawled out across his sister’s bed, feet propped up on her desk, twirling an earbud between his fingers. She narrows her eyes as a shit-eating grin spreads across his face. “Speak of the devil and he shall appear,” she says coldly. 

“Oh, I prefer Bellamy,” he says, quirking an eyebrow at her. His smile is still in place, sarcastic and smug and annoyingly attractive. “And you can be assured I’m not following you, princess. I have much more interesting pursuits than trailing after you all over campus.”

“I’ve seen you four times in the past three days, in… places.” She was about to say  _ my places _ , but she didn’t think that’d go over well with the irritatingly freckled boy sprawled out across from her. 

“Yes, princess,” he says, slowly, as if explaining something to a child, “people tend to go to places.” 

“Places I’ve never seen you before!” she protests, “like the bookstore on third and the café on sixth! How do you even know about those?”

“I don’t live under a rock,” Bellamy says, sitting up and dragging a hand through his already-messy curls. “DropShip Books is the best sci-fi place in town and almost everyone is in love with Harper and her lattés, so don’t think you’re the only one who goes to the Bunker in the afternoons.” 

Clarke huffs and falls back onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling. She guesses her secret places were not-so-secret among the rest of the students. Sure, she’d recognized some people from around school there before, but they’d been few and far between. She doesn’t want to mention the boulder by the river or her favorite park bench, not when she’s sure he didn’t notice  _ her _ there. A Bellamy that thinks she’s spying on him would be even more insufferable than the one in front of her.

She changes the subject. “What are you doing here, Blake?” Her tone implies she wants information, not conversation. 

“Place is being fumigated,” he says, either not noticing her abrupt change in tone or ignoring it all together. “Jasper’s illegal bug farm broke all over his floor and now the whole damn building’s gotta be swept and sprayed.”

She digs the heels of her palms into her eyes and groans inwardly. “How long is that gonna take?”

“Maybe three days,” he says, and the edge in his voice tells her he isn’t happy with this arrangement, either. 

“So you’re gonna stay in our dorm room for three days?” Clarke is already dreading the ‘yes’ she knows is surely coming. 

Bellamy assumes a similar position, laying back and staring balefully at the ceiling. “Unfortunately.”

She doesn’t try to muffle the loud, drawn out, ‘ugh.’ Her groan hangs in the stale air, and eventually she says “You can’t stay with anyone else?” 

“Miller knows some guy in Mecha Hall without a roommate, so he and Monty are staying there, and Jasper, to everyone’s surprise, is staying with his girlfriend. I’m stuck with my little sister,” Clarke ignores his acrimonious tone and pops back up on her elbows. 

“Jasper has a girlfriend?” surprise replaces the irritation in her voice. 

Bellamy turns his head to look at her. “How do you know the delinquents, anyway?”

Clarke cocks her head at him, and her hair finally falls out of the bun that had been perched precariously on the back of her head. The golden waves tumble down around her shoulders, and Bellamy swallows, attempting to ignore the way the afternoon sunlight lights it on fire. “You didn’t answer my question,” she says, and her voice has slipped back into that frustrating blank, unreadable state.

He smiles at her, a horrible, smug grin again, and her traitorous heart picks up a little. “Neither have you.”

“You’re the one that’ll be sleeping on my floor,” Clarke counters. 

“It’s Octavia’s floor, too.” he retorts.

“Technically it’s the university’s floor. You’re stalling.”

“Her name is Maya. How do you know Monty and Jasper?” 

Clarke hesitates before answering. If she has to talk about Monty and Jasper, she has to talk about high school. If she has to talk about high school, she has to talk about Wells. And that’s not something anyone here has to know. Especially not Bellamy. “High school,” is all she says.

Bellamy’s dumb little eyebrow quirks up again. “The princess hung out with the chem geeks in high school?”

Clarke’s face flushes. “This princess was a chem geek in high school.”

She’s really starting to hate his grin. “So you admit you’re a princess,” he says, and there’s something about his voice that makes her want to punch him in his perfect, stupid face. 

She doesn’t think it’s possible for her face to go any redder. “I hate you,” she says, letting her elbows give out and laying back down. 

They both lay there, pointedly ignoring each other for at least fifteen minutes before Clarke sits up and crawls over her mess of pillows to pull her homework out of her bag. She feels Bellamy’s eyes on her but refuses even to look at him.

_ If the next three days have to pass in hostile silence, _ she thinks,  _ so be it _ . 

Octavia arrives home from class two hours later to find Bellamy and Clarke, both with headphones on, backs to each other, begrudgingly sharing the small space. 

She shakes her head, speaks loudly so she’s sure they’ll both hear. “What did I miss?” 

Clarke looks up and says, without taking off her headphones, “Ask  _ him _ .” Her expression is more bitter than Octavia’s ever seen it, she can tell they’ve been picking at each other for hours.

Bellamy’s shoulders tense up, and there’s a deadly, short silence before he all but whirls around. “This isn’t my fault, okay?” His voice is strained, and Octavia can tell he’s been holding this back for as long as he can. 

“Wit,” she sighs, rubbing her temples, “What isn’t your fault?” She looks at her brother questioningly. “It’s nearly six -- Why are you here and not at your place?”

Clarke practically rips her headphones out and turns to glare at the large, angry man crammed into the small wooden chair. “You didn’t even ask her?” She yells, “You just showed up and expected us to be okay with it?”

“She’s my sister!” He yells back, standing up so quickly Octavia thinks she hears wood splinter, “I didn’t think I needed to ask!”

Clarke stands, too, and steps until they’re nearly nose-to-nose. “I live here, too, asshat!” She’s  already fuming, and Octavia wonders how long they’ve both been sitting here, stewing in silence, ready to snap. “You didn’t even think about me, did you?”

“Not everything’s about you, Princess!” Bellamy’s gone from raised-voice to booming-voice shouting, and Octavia can only think about the poor girls on the other side of the wall. “But I guess you don’t get that, do you?” He continues, ruthless, “All you think about is yourself!” 

Clarke’s eyes sharpen and her face tightens. “I could say the same about you, Blake!” she shoots back. “Always walking right in like you own the damn place! Always saying whatever the hell you want because you’re Bellamy Blake, and screw the rest of us!”

“Oh, like you’re any better!” He complains, shoving his hands in his back pockets. “Clarke Griffin, queen of the fuckin’ world! Excuse me, your majesty! I didn’t realize I needed your permission to speak!” 

Clarke pinches her lips together so tightly they go white, and if steam really could pour out of a person’s ears, Clarke’s would be pouring. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it, Bellamy!” Her fists are clenching and unclenching, and Octavia wonders if either of them even remembers she’s in the room at this point. 

“Then what the hell did you mean?” Bellamy shouts, “Cause that’s what it sounded like to me!” 

“I meant -- I meant --” Clarke sputters, and Bellamy smirks like a cocksure asshole, sure he’s won, but at the sight of his face, her face hardens and she continues. “I meant you don’t take a second to worry about anyone but yourself!” Her voice is even louder now, and confident. She’s found her footing, and angry words pour from her mouth. “You say what you want because you don’t give a damn about how anyone feels, but yourself!” 

Octavia steps between them, putting her forearms across each of their collarbones, legitimately concerned they’re going to lunge at each other. “GUYS!” she bellows, and they both fall silent, as if only now realizing just how loud they were being. “It’s for three days,” Octavia pleads, “Can you try not to kill each other for three days? Please?” 

Clarke and Bellamy glare daggers at each other around her, and Bellamy practically spits the words when he finally speaks. “No promises.” 

Clarke doesn’t back down, even when her roommate puts a hand on her sternum and forcibly pushes her backwards. “Likewise,” she hisses, and then stoops to grab her jacket before stomping out the door. 

She wipes away furious tears as she stomps down the hallway, mostly pissed at the fact that Bellamy made her cry,  _ again _ . What is  _ with _ her? For three years,  _ nothing _ , and now this guy -- this pretentious, self-assured, arrogant asshole of a guy -- has brought her to tears twice in as many weeks? 

What the  _ hell _ ? 

Clarke doesn’t stop until she’s down the back stairs and on the sidewalk that faces the greenbelt behind Jaha Hall. She falls back against the brick wall and sinks to the cement, bringing her knees into her chest. The night air is cool and soothing against her face, and she leans her head back against the building, gazing up at the stars.  _ How much easier would it be, _ she thinks,  _ if I could live up there, instead of here _ ? But then, she remembers she’d need things like pasta and Netflix and tampons, and figures it’s better here on the ground. 

Even if his royal asshat-ness is here, too. She shuts her eyes, dreading the next three days and racking her brain for alternate solutions. The option that looks the most appealing is ‘throw him out by the seat of his pants and make him sleep in a dumpster’ but she doesn’t think Octavia would be too keen on that idea. 

Her hands are still trembling, much to her annoyance, as she pulls her phone out of her sweatshirt pocket. With a practiced motion, she unlocks it and dials a familiar number.   

She practically melts in relief when it picks up. “Raven?” 

“Hey, Clarke!” Her voice is uncharacteristically cheerful, but Clarke isn’t going to question it. Ever since the Finncident last spring, Raven has been in a funk, throwing herself into her work and ignoring the rest of her friends. If something is making her this happy, especially so early in the semester, Clarke isn’t going to complain. “What’s up?”

“I need a favor,” Clarke says, reluctantly. She hates asking Raven for anything, not after what she did to the other girl -- even unintentionally. 

There’s giggling in the background and muffled yelling, and Raven’s laughing when she says, “Yeah, sure, anything!” 

Clarke takes a breath before saying “Can I maybe stay with you for a couple days?”

There’s a harsh, muffled whisper and the chaos on the other line comes to an abrupt stop. “Clarke, what’s going on? Is your roommate a total creep? Did some guy in those co-ed dorms try something? I swear to god, I’ll --”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Clarke says, before Raven can get too graphic, “It’s just, Octavia’s brother’s house is getting fumigated --”

“Wait, we’re talking Octavia Blake, right? Freshman?”Raven interrupts.

“Yeah.”

“Her older brother is Bellamy, right?”

“How do you know that?”

“Long story. You were saying?”

“He’s stopped coming around lately, thank God, but now he just showed up and he needs to crash on our floor for a couple days, but…” she trails off. 

“But what?” Raven asks, and when Clarke doesn’t answer right away, she continues with a warning in her voice. “Clarke, what is this about?”

“I can’t  _ stand him _ , Raven!” Clarke says, finally, “He’s possibly the worst person I’ve ever met and if I have to stay in that abysmal room with him for more than twelve hours I’ll --” 

“Jump his bones?” Raven offers, and Clarke huffs in frustration.

“What the hell, Reyes?” she cries, “You don’t even know him,” 

“There, you’re wrong,” Raven says, with some degree of shame in her voice. “Bellamy bartends at the LockBox, and after Finn, well…”

“Please tell me you didn’t rebound with my roommate’s brother.”

“She wasn’t your roommate at the time,” Raven says defensively.

“Raven!” Clarke groans. She can picture her best friend on the other end of the line, shrugging unapologetically.

“He’s hot! Also, not that bad once you get to know him. He helped me through some shit, Clarke. Give the guy a chance,” Raven says, and her voice has achieved that lofty ‘C’mon Clarke be a human’ tone, the one that Clarke hates, and she knows Raven isn’t going to be listening to her much, anyway, based on the ruckus she can hear starting up again on the other girl’s end of the call. 

“So that’s a no on the favor, then?” she asks, knowing the answer. 

“It’s college, Clarke! Have an adventure!” Clarke can tell Raven’s distracted, because she’s never sounded so smiley before. Raven and smiley shouldn’t even belong in the same sentence. “Zeke, I swear to God --” 

The line goes dead. 

Clarke drops her face against her knees and stays there for several minutes, summoning the courage to climb the stairs and face her exhausted roommate and her infuriating brother. Eventually, the night cuts through her thin leggings, and she reluctantly stands and swings the door open, fearing the worst. 


	5. opportunities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s only a few minutes later when the heavy oak door squeaks open. Abigail Griffin holds it open, and an older guy walks into the lobby, tall and well-built, but there’s something to his walk that makes Bellamy want to get up and help him. He almost does -- but then he sees who is walking next to him, and stops, halfway out of his chair.
> 
> It’s Clarke. He shouldn’t really be surprised to see her here, given it’s her mother’s office, but it’s the way she looks next to the man, small and young and almost… almost afraid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally bellamy gets to be less of a dick!! don't forget to comment babes I love your feedback!!

Clarke slips quietly back into the room about thirty minutes later, after Octavia’s done ripping him a new one and they’re borrowed a sleeping bag from the engineering nerds a floor up. He can’t decide if he’s still pissed or not, but she, evidently, still is, because she refuses to make eye contact with him as she grabs her pajamas and toothbrush and heads to the bathroom.Whatever. All he needs is a floor to crash on. The emotional state of his temporary roommates is of no concern to him.At least, that’s what he tells himself as he pulls his t-shirt over his head and settles down on the flannel sleeping bag. Clarke comes back from the bathroom and nearly trips over both him and herself, cheeks pinking slightly as she notices his bare torso. 

All he has to do is quirk an eyebrow at her, and she’s back to glaring at him in annoyance before slipping under her comforter and flicking the light off. He grins and lets his eyes fall closed, hoping the nightmares will leave him alone, just for tonight.

 

 

Clarke sleeps topless. This is something Bellamy finds out, involuntarily, after something falls from the air and lands directly on his face in the middle of the night. It startles him awake, but he lays there in shock for a moment before peeling it off his face and holding it up, attempting to determine what it is. 

Whatever it is, it smells fantastic, like vanilla and something unidentifiable and intoxicatingly, wonderfully feminine. The dim light in the room makes it difficult to see, but he recognizes the logo as the same one on the t-shirt Clarke was wearing when she came back from the bathroom… Shit. He’s holding Clarke’s shirt. He lets go of it as quickly as possible, tossing it back up onto her bed and rolling over onto his side. It takes him a while to get to sleep, after that. 

He wakes up when Octavia puts her ice-cold feet directly in the middle of his bare chest. He doesn’t yell or curse, only grabs both her ankles and squeezes until she does both things and lifts her legs back up onto her bed. There’s a rustle in the other bed at the noise, Clarke rolling over and making a soft sound. 

Bellamy doesn’t notice, only grins at his little sister. Her dark hair is a tangled mess (at least that hasn’t changed) and the rumpled t-shirt she’s wearing was his, years ago. Octavia glances over at her sleeping roommate before whispering, “I’ve got an 8:30. you can have my bed, if you want. I know your class doesn’t start til 11.”

“Thanks, O,” he whispers back. She climbs over him and digs in the closet for a second, before emerging with her shower caddy and bustling out the door. Bellamy stands up and stretches, the muscles in his back loudly protesting at the night spent on the floor. He drags his hands down his face and pushes his tangled, curly, black hair around a little. 

The dorms, he decides, are almost better than his block. At least this early in the morning, nearly every resident is still asleep, and there are no annoyingly talkative retirees or weirdly loud poodles yapping up a storm at ungodly hours. He glances around his sister’s room, blinking blearily in the sunlight leaking in through the blinds. It’s not half-bad, he decides. Just enough room, a pretty decent closet, and -- Oh.

Clarke is still asleep, laying on her stomach with her arms pushed under pillow, her curly blond hair fanned out against the gray fabric. The light filtering through the blinds falls in slats over her, and her skin practically glows in the golden light. She still isn’t wearing a shirt. 

He stretches out a hand, feeling an urge to run his fingers down the line of her back, across the delicate curve of her shoulder blades. The morning light casts an ethereal spell over the room, and in this moment, he can’t remember why they fought yesterday, or why the sound of her name fills his chest with a surge of emotion. All he knows is that her skin looks incredibly soft and warm, and she seems so fantastically beautiful in the morning light.

He realizes what he’s doing just before his callused fingertips brush her spine. He snaps his hand back, shakes his head to clear it.  _ Idiot _ , he thinks,  _ just because she’s beautiful doesn’t make her any less of a privileged bitch _ . He falls back on Octavia’s bed and digs the heels of his palms into his eyes before he can do anything stupid. ( _ Also _ , a tiny voice in the back of his head adds,  _ she’s  _ way _ out of your league. _ ) He rolls over and faces the wall, determined to sleep until he’s the only one left in the room. 

It almost works, but his brain seems to hate him, this particular morning. He isn’t asleep for long when the dreams return. Flashes of dark alleys and rusty chain link fences flicker behind his eyelids. He can smell stale cigarette smoke, mixed with the hot, metallic smell of bullets. He hears the gunfire, the screaming curses. He feels the brick walls of the alley closing in on him, and his breath is coming in sporadic bursts, his heart hammering out an erratic rhythm on his ribs. 

_ Don’t think we don’t know you’re here, boy _ . Bellamy is five years old again, and he squeezes his eyes shut even further,  _ Don’t think we won’t find you, Bellamy.  _  Wait, that wasn’t right. They never said his name. He’s fairly certain they never even knew his name.   _ Bellamy! BELLAMY!  _

He jerks upright, chest heaving, forehead drenched in sweat. His brown eyes are wide and terrified with a wild, unguarded fear; it takes him a minute to realize where he is. Clarke is bending over him, her hand on his shoulder, eyes wide in concern. “Are you okay?” she asks. 

He stares at her, brain tripping over itself to catch up with his body, and he can barely catch his breath. “I’m fine,” he coughs, “Just a dream.” He brushes her hand away and sits up, staring resolutely at his knees. 

Clarke stands up, and suddenly, he can see the walls back in her icy blue eyes. “Oh,” she says. They stare at each other for a minute. Clarke is dressed for class, her messenger bag slung across her shoulder. “I guess I’ll …” she says, awkwardly edging towards the door. “I’ll see you later, then.”

He clears his throat. “yeah, sure,” he says brusquely, “Later.” She turns and darts out the door. He swings his legs off the bed and puts his elbows on his knees, staring at his feet. He breathes in and out, shaky but controlled. He had to run away, one night, when a couple dealers came looking for Aurora, after their unsettled debts. Octavia was barely two, still small enough to fit in the hidden room in the basement, but Aurora had shoved him out the door and warned him sternly not to come back until the men were gone. 

Too scared to go far, Bellamy had hidden in a neighbor’s yard, hidden by scrap metal. Aurora couldn’t pay, and they’d wanted him to work off her debts in service of the gang she owed. They called the younger boys watch-pups, made them stand on street corners and yell if cops came too close to any illegal proceedings. They’d found him in that yard, and he worked for them for two years before they had enough money to disappear to another state in the middle of the night. He guessed they didn’t care enough about one junkie’s debt to chase them very far. The nightmares were frequent, worse when he was stressed. If Clarke knew what they were really about, she wouldn’t even know what to say. 

Bellamy sighs, rubs at his eyes. He has class in an hour. 

 

 

Bellamy gets an email from the one and only Abby Griffin in the middle of his afternoon class. He’s not surprised; he applied for additional financial aid earlier in the month, but he wasn’t expecting a reply. He’s been turned down before, and he wasn’t expecting this time to be different.  His computer makes a loud chime in the middle of Greco-Roman Socioeconomic Interactions, and the ten other students in the class turn to glare at him. Professor Keaton turns to glare at him, and he mutes the sound, muttering an apology. He attempts to focus on the Venn Diagram between Greek and Roman slave systems, but the red flag above his inbox nags at him. 

Finally, he gives in and opens the e-mail, the last name in the subject line making his hand pause over the trackpad. He shakes his head when the image of Clarke comes to mind rather than the facelessness he associates with her mother. She’s infecting every aspect of his life.  

_ Mr. Blake,  _

_ I am pleased to inform you that your request for further aid has been accepted! There is a significant opportunity for students such as yourself and your sister, Octavia Blake, and I would be grateful if you would meet me today at 4:30 PM to further discuss possible participation in this program.  _

_ Thank You, _

_ Abigail Griffin _

His heart almost stops. Bellamy checks his heavy black watch. It’s nearly four. Knowing that if he misses this, he’ll be out of luck, Bellamy feels a mixture of anxiety and anticipation rise in his chest. He applied for an aid program last semester that would mean  one less shift at the bar every week, and  _ that _ would mean a passing grade in Stats 402 and a faster track to his master’s. 

In short, getting it would mean the world.

He bounces his leg through the last ten minutes of the lecture before dashing out the door as fast as he possibly can. The student center is halfway across campus, and Bellamy books it across the courtyard, black canvas backpack bouncing wildly against his shoulders. He skids into the lobby, nearly falling over to stop and ruffle his bangs into some semblance of order. He knows his gray henley and scuffed leather jacket isn’t suitable for an official meeting, but there’s nothing he can do about that now. 

He checks his watch again. 4:25. Bellamy jams the up button with his thumb. The elevator ride is agonizingly slow, and he attempts to rearrange his rumpled shirt. The doors ding open. Taking a deep breath, he steps out into the lobby, ignoring the glare the secretary gives his muddy boots as he steps onto the carpet. 

“I’m here to see Abigail Griffin,” he says gruffly.

“Are you her 4:30?” she asks condescendingly. 

He clears his throat. “I guess.”

She rolls her eyes imperceptibly and says, “Sit. Wait.”

He does, nervously checking his watch and bouncing his leg again, until the secretary glares at his knee. It’s only a few minutes later when the heavy oak door squeaks open. Abigail Griffin holds it open, and an older guy walks into the lobby, tall and well-built, but there’s something to his walk that makes Bellamy want to get up and help him. He almost does -- but then he sees who is walking next to him, and stops, halfway out of his chair.

It’s Clarke. He shouldn’t really be surprised to see her here, given it’s her mother’s office, but it’s the way she looks next to the man, small and young and almost… almost afraid. 

“Bellamy,” she says, and then looks surprised at the sound of her own voice. Her eyes go wide and she tightens her grip on the man’s elbow. 

He turns to look at her, and his amiable smile only widens. “Clarke,” he says, and his voice is warm and gruff, “you know this young man?”

“He --” Clarke splutters, and her face goes a very adorable shade of red. She looks from the man to Bellamy, big blue eyes seeming to plead for help.  “He, uh --” 

Bellamy cuts in. “She’s my sister’s roommate,” he says, standing. 

The man extends his hand to shake Bellamy’s, leaning heavily on an aluminum cane in the absence of Clarke’s support. “Jake Griffin,” he says, “Nice to meet you, young man. 

Bellamy shakes it, and Jake’s palm is rough and calloused against Bellamy’s own. This man, born into wealth, CEO of an international corporate power, has a working man’s hands, and Bellamy can’t help but wonder why. Abby appears from the office, and Bellamy gestures to Clarke. She leaves her parents and crosses to him, concern for her father battling with annoyance. 

“What do you want?” she asks, brusque, not looking at him but instead continually casting her eyes towards her parents. 

“Clarke,” he starts, barely sure of what to say, “if I had known --” 

She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and bounces up and down on her toes, just a little. “Can we please talk about this later?” 

“Please, Clarke I just --” 

Jake doubles over with a loud and concerning cough. Bellamy steps forward, to catch him, if necessary, but Clarke gets there first. “Dad!” she exclaims, catching his arm and keeping him upright. Her face, which is normally so closed off and unreadable, is plainly terrified. The open emotion in her features shocks Bellamy, who has only seen two expressions on her face: pissed or annoyed. 

Jake smiles, sighs, waves off Clarke’s worrying look. “I’m fine, sweetheart, just a twinge, that’s all.” Clarke doesn’t look mollified in the least, and Abigail Griffin is standing in the doorway of her office, still half-reaching out for her husband. “Why don’t you help me out to the car, Clarke,” Jake says, doing his best to keep his tone light. “It appears your mother has an appointment.”

Clarke nods grimly and leads her father to the elevator, patient as he shuffles slowly across the carpet. Bellamy watches them go, and he finally understands why Clarke gets so mad whenever he brings up her family. He can see it in the slump of her father’s broad shoulders, in the dark circles underneath her mother’s eyes. This family, once so powerful, is now entirely shattered. Something akin to regret settles in his throat. All those things he said to her -- everything about her rich family and her cushy past and was she “doin’ this to piss of her rich daddy or somethin’?”  _ God _ , he thinks,  _ I’m an idiot. _

The metal doors slide closed behind the tall man and his daughter, and Bellamy lets his gaze linger a little too long, because Abigail clears her throat. “Mr. Blake, I believe you were here to discuss your financial situation?”

His head whips around, and Dr. Griffin is still standing in the doorway to her office, but her chin is tilted back, shoulders squared, every mark of weakness erased from her face, like a switch has been flipped. If it wasn’t for the eyes, he could have sworn it was Clarke standing in front of him, instead of her mother. 

He mumbles something and rakes a hand through his messy curls, crossing the vestibule quickly and ducking past her into the office. The room is large, but the dark bookcases on either wall and dark carpeting give it a cozy, warm feel, contradicted by the glass desk and large, imposing leather desk chair behind it. Bellamy sits in the uncomfortable wooden chair opposite the huge window and twists his hands together in his lap. 

He’s not normally this nervous, and he blames the encounter with Clarke for setting him on edge, although with annoyance or -- something else -- he doesn’t know. Abigail Griffin follows, much more slowly, and sits delicately in her large, bulky chair. “You applied for the Guardsman scholarship, is that correct, Mr. Blake?”

Bellamy nods. “Yeah,” he says, “this year, with Octavia being a freshman and all, I finally qualify. Also, it would mean enough money to stop working so much, pass some more credits, hopefully graduate in the spring.” 

Abigail nods sagely, and Bellamy berates himself for comparing the closed expression on her face to the one he’s seen so often on her daughter, but it’s hard. Clarke and her mother look very little alike in coloring, but the high spread of their cheekbones is the same, as is the set of their chins and the determined grit of their jaws. He wonders, passingly, if Clarke has something to do with this meeting. If maybe she mentioned him to her mother. But she clearly hates him -- why would she want to help?

The dean’s voice jerks him out of his thoughts. “Well, Mr. Blake, we’ve reviewed your academic and public record, as well as your sister’s, and we’ve decided to award you instead with the Chancellor’s scholarship.”

Bellamy’s stomach drops to his toes. The Chancellor’s scholarship is a full ride -- tuition totally covered, a meal plan, book fees paid in full -- the only thing he’d have to worry about is his sister’s fees. it would mean he could continue on to a PhD, become a history professor, maybe even let Octavia do that semester abroad, like she’d been wanting. Bellamy’s jaw drops, and Abigail’s facade cracks enough to let a tiny smile through. 

“But --” he splutters, “Why? How? I, uh--” 

“You’re an impressive student, Mr. Blake,” the dean says, cutting off his incoherent sputtering, “and the fact you’ve been working three jobs since enrolling here has not gone unnoticed, either. You deserve this, Bellamy.”

“Thank you,” he says, “Thank you so much!” He’d applied for it, like he’d applied for everything else, but the Chancellor’s was reserved for the Ivy-League remnants who ended up at Ark U, the kids who’d spent hours in AP classes and volunteer events, not people like Bellamy, who’d been working since they were fourteen and barely graduated high school. He’d applied for the Chancellor’s, expected the Guardsman’s, and gotten the former. 

The disbelief must have been clear on his face because Abigail’s smile widens, and she says “Don’t thank me yet. You’re going to have to work for this, and there’s still a mountain of paperwork to get through.” To prove her point, she plops a huge manila folder on her desk in front of him. He takes it and tucks into his bag, still thanking her profusely. “Get these back to me by Monday, and I’ll make sure everything gets taken care of.” He thanks her again as he exits the office. “And Bellamy?” He turns. “I wasn’t aware you were friends with my daughter.” 

So she didn’t mention him, then. “We know each other,” is all he says in response. 

There’s a sadness in her eyes that looks like it runs deeper than just her husband’s illness. “Just --” she heaves a sigh, like she’s weighing her next words carefully. “Would you just make sure she’s alright? She needs people, right now.” 

At a loss for how to answer, Bellamy’s brain stammers to keep up. “Uh, yeah,” he says, eventually. “I’ll take care of her.” She nods in thanks, and then turns back to her computer, the signal that it’s time for him to leave. The odd interaction gets pushed to the side as he marvels at the folder in his hands in the elevator, his wish, finally come true.

He doesn’t hear Dr. Griffin’s phone ring as the doors shut behind him. He doesn’t hear the choked sob she lets out when she picks it up. He’s already in the lobby and running towards Jaha Hall when she puts a hand over her eyes and falls, broken, into her chair.

 

Octavia is sitting at her desk when he bursts through the door, sweaty from booking it across campus again, smiling like an idiot. 

“I did it, O!” he crows, crossing the small space in an instant and lifting her out of her chair in a giant bear hug, “They gave me the Chancellor’s Scholarship!”

Octavia’s grin lights up her green eyes, and she smacks his arm excitedly. “That’s amazing, Bellamy! This is --” she exhales, almost in relief, “This is fantastic!” She laughs and throws her arms around her brother’s neck, and he has to pry her off so he can tell her what he has to say next.

“This means I can start saving for your semester abroad, O,” he says, voice low and excited, clinging tightly to his sister’s shoulders, “This means you can go to Manila!” 

Octavia screams excitedly and hugs her brother again, both Blakes rocking back and forth. Another surge of relief sweeps through Bellamy’s body, as the news continues to sink in. He doesn’t have to work three jobs anymore. He doesn’t have to worry about eating next week or making sure Octavia has what she needs for her classes. He won’t have to stress over next semester’s tuition, doesn’t need to panic about making sure everything is paid for and also  _ not  _ failing his classes.

This scholarship is a dream come true. 

All too late, he notices the empty bed, the vacant chair. He pulls away, brows furrowed. “Where’s Clarke?” 

Octavia’s grin slides quickly from her face, and her eyes cloud with sympathy. “The hospital. She just called me. Something about her dad.” 

The breath leaves Bellamy’s body too quickly, and he falls back onto his sister’s bed. “What?” 

Octavia nods, tucks a lock of dark hair behind her ear. “It happened like five minutes ago. She called me, all panicky, said her dad passed out in the car and she’d taken him to the hospital, but she didn’t know what was going on, that no one would tell her anything. I’d only just hung up when you came in.” 

A lump rises in Bellamy’s throat, and he stares at the floor. “That is so weird,” he breathes, mostly to himself. 

Octavia peers at him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “What is? Bell, are you okay?”

He clears his throat and shakes his head. “Yeah,” he says, loudly and too quickly, “It’s just --” he looks up into his sister’s concerned face. “I ran into them -- Clarke and her dad -- when I was talking to Dr. Griffin. I just --” He lets out a breath, rakes a hand through his hair. He remembers what he’d said, just before he left. “I told her I’d take care of Clarke.”

He can feel his stomach prickling, a lump of dread sitting in the bottom of his chest, and he doesn’t understand why he’s so upset for a man he only met five minutes ago, but then it hits him. He’s not upset about Jake Griffin, but instead for his daughter.

Coming out of her mother’s office, Clarke had looked so scared, so plainly terrified, not only when she saw him sitting there, but also when her dad had doubled over. Her face was normally made of stone, but there, in the vestibule of the dean’s office, she’d looked so petrified, so young, like a child, forced to watch her father crumble away to dust. 

“Is she gonna be okay?” he asks, and then realizes what he said, correcting himself almost immediately. “I mean, he. Is Clarke’s dad gonna be okay?”

Octavia lets out a breath and pushes her hair back from her face with both hands, shrugging. “I don’t know. Clarke had only just gotten there. She didn’t know anything when she called me, either.” 

They sit in a stunned, tired kind of silence for a moment before he speaks. “Should we go to the hospital? See if Clarke needs anything?” His words surprise both of them, and he regrets them even more when a knowing smile appears on Octavia’s face.

“Since when do you care about Clarke?” her voice is more inquisitive than mocking, but the tone is still there. 

“I’m not a total douchebag, O,” Bellamy replies defensively. “If her dad is really in bad shape, she’s gonna want you there, at least, and I’m the one with the car.” 

Octavia nods. “Whatever you want to tell yourself, Bell,” she says quietly, before standing and grabbing her jacket off the floor. “Let’s go.” 

The car ride to the hospital is long and silent. Bellamy drums his fingers nervously on the steering wheel; Octavia is gracious enough not to say anything. She tries flicking on the radio, but Bellamy’s long, tan fingers hit the button as soon as bubblegum pop starts blaring through the speakers. It’s Little Mix, which Octavia loves, but he snaps “I’m driving, O,” and pushes it off within a second. 

She doesn’t know if it’s the traffic or the thought of Clarke, alone and scared and waiting for them, but the muscle in his jaw hasn’t relaxed since he got on the freeway, and if the tendons in his forearms are any indication, there’s something bigger at play. 

Finally, Bellamy pulls his dusty blue Honda into the parking lot. The two Blake siblings spill out of it, a tangle of long legs and dark hair, and hurry across the parking lot to the emergency room doors. Bellamy slips through them, past a family with a small boy in a wheelchair, and before he can control it, his eyes are searching the room for Clarke. Suddenly, she flies out of nowhere, locking her arms around Octavia’s neck, not seeming to notice him standing awkwardly to the side. 

“Thank you so, so much for coming,” she says, and there’s a catch in her voice that spurs memories of a broken father and a pregnant mother in Bellamy’s mind. He can see a room full of black clothing and hear the hushed whispers as Clarke pulls away, a small furrow between her eyebrows. The look on her face is all too familiar, and all he wants is to reach out and pull her in and assure her she won’t have to live without a father, not yet, not like he did. 

But then her eyes flick over to lock on his, and he can practically see her walls slam down. “Thanks,” she says again, “It must have been a huge inconvenience.” Her voice no longer wavers, and he sees the jut of her chin, the defensiveness in her eyes, and ignores it. He’s not looking for a fight, even though she wants one. 

He shrugs. “It’s nothing,” he says. “I wanted to drive Octavia down here. I figured you could use the support.”

The edge in her expression softens, just the smallest bit, and another surge of guilt sweeps through him.  _ God, _ he’s so stupid! If only he’d  _ known! _ Octavia is saying something vaguely comforting and Bellamy forces himself out of his thoughts when she grabs his arm and drags him across the lobby, after Clarke, who slumps down in a beige, uncomfortable-looking chair, and tilts her head against the back of it. 

Octavia sits down beside her friend and takes her hand, and the two girls start speaking quietly. Bellamy stands awkwardly for a moment, before finally taking a seat in the chair on the other side of Clarke. 

“It just happened so suddenly,” Clarke says quietly. “One minute we’re fine, I’m driving him home, and then he just stops talking, right in the middle of a sentence!” Her face is stone blank, and she stares at her knees, an aching hollowness in her voice. Octavia holds Clarke’s hand tightly as the older girl continues to tell her story, making concerned noises and offers of reassurance, but Bellamy holds his own hands together in his lap, resisting the urge to hold her. 

Confusion stands between the anger and sympathy warring in his head. He hates this girl sitting next to him. She’s privileged and classist and stuck-up and won’t listen to anything he has to say… right?

Or was that him, being blind, seeing her the way he wanted to, and not the way she was? All he can see now is a broken girl, suffering in the uncertainty of her father’s fate. The fire he has grown so accustomed to is gone from her eyes, and instead, Clarke looks deflated, desperate. 

A nurse enters the waiting room, and every pair of eyes snaps up, each family and group of friends hungry for news. She checks her clipboard. “Who’s here with Jake Griffin?” 

Clarke’s knuckles go white on Octavia’s hand. She stands, shakily, and fiddles with the bottom of her sweatshirt. “I am,” she says, and the waver in her voice is suppressed, but there.

The nurse smiles, whether with comfort or sympathy, Bellamy can’t tell, and says “Come with me.”

Octavia offers Clarke a hopeful smile as she follows the nurse through the “Restricted Area” doors and disappears. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cackles*   
> THE SPARK IS LIT THE BURN BEGINS   
> remember to leave ur feelings in the comments


	6. moments of realization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Because I am. Sorry, I mean. All the things I said --”
> 
> Squeezing his hand, she stops him. “It’s okay,” she says, “You didn’t know. You couldn’t have.”
> 
> \-- short summary this time because I didn't want to spoil anything!! --

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys!!  
> sorry the update is kinda late -- wednesday I was travelling and thursday was thanksgiving, but fear not!! the chapter is here!! remember to leave ur lovely feelings in the comments -- i thrive off of them

The nurse leads Clarke to her father’s room, through white, shining hallways that reek of antiseptic, and, if Clarke isn’t imagining it, death. She attempts to conceal her shaking hands in the front pocket of her Ark U sweatshirt and ducks her head as she passes crying families, patients in wheelchairs, doctors, sprinting to their next surgery. 

Suddenly, the idea of working in a place like this -- being surrounded by death and suffering all day -- makes her sick to her stomach. The nurse pauses in front of a room and swings the door open, ushering Clarke through. 

Abigail Griffin is waiting on the other side of Jake’s bed, hunched over in a white plastic chair, cradling her head in her hands. She looks up as her daughter enters the room, brown eyes ringed with red, mouth set in a grim line. 

Clarke hesitates in the threshold, eyes darting between her parents. She’s kept radio silence for months, only exchanging pleasantries and asking for health updates. But now, her mother stands before her, desperate and run ragged, arms held out in silent supplication. Any resentment Clarke held towards her parents for hiding her father’s illness, their deteriorating financial situation, the truth about their work at Griffin inc. -- it all gets pushed away when she sees the look of exhaustion on her mother’s face, the paleness of her father’s prostrate, pale body in the hospital bed in front of her. 

She crosses the room in a few steps and wraps her arms around her mother’s shoulders, feeling a sharp twinge of guilt when she hears her small sigh of relief. “Clarke,” Abigail breathes, “He’s alright, for now. It was just a lack of oxygen to his brain, he’s ok.”

Clarke relaxes, feels the tension leave her shoulders as she clings tightly to her mother. “Oh thank god,” she lets out. Clarke isn’t ready to lose him. Not yet. The two hold on to each other for a moment longer before Abigail pulls away.

“Clarke, honey,” Abigail starts, and Clarke tenses again, fearing the sympathy in her mother’s voice, “We’ve been meaning to tell you -- ”

Clarke takes a step back from her mother, grasping for the edge of the bed. “No,” she whispers, knowing what’s coming. “No, you promised me you’d do everything you could,” she sobs, and her mother reaches out for her, Clarke cringing away. “You promised me you’d  _ find treatment _ !” 

Tears begin to well in Abigail’s eyes, and her voice is strangled and soft.“We  _ tried _ , sweetheart, we tried  _ so hard _ , but it’s metastasized, it’s in his lungs and the lining of his chest --” 

“You promised!” Clarke yells, “Does that mean  _ nothing _ to you?”

“Clarke,” Abigail says, “Hospice is the best place for him, now --” 

“This can’t be his decision,” Clarke’s voice is hollow and disbelieving. “ _ He  _ promised! He wouldn’t put himself in hospice, he  _ promised _ !” Her voice breaks, spilling over into sobs. “You’re letting him die, you’re breaking your promise!” She sounds like a child, she knows she does, and she doesn’t care. “You didn’t even  _ tell me _ !” She’s screaming now, letting out all the rage she’d bottled up after she’d discovered her father was having chemo treatments, that he’d been hiding his pancreatic cancer for  _ months _ . They’d both lied about his sickness, his work helping the military develop weapons, even about their bank accounts, which had been drained for Jake’s treatment and Clarke’s education. 

“We were trying to protect you, honey,” Abigail says softly, “You were applying to majors, you couldn’t know.” 

Clarke swallows her protest, and casts another glance at her father, sleeping soundly with a cannula in his nose. She knows she should stay, to be there when he wakes up, to hear about his decision from him, but she looks back at her mother and she can’t imagine staying in the same room with this woman for much longer. Clarke takes a deep breath and speaks quietly. “Call me when he wakes up. I have a test to study for.” It’s cold and insensitive and she’s being a terrible daughter, but she doesn’t care anymore. 

Clarke leaves a kiss on her father’s forehead and stalks out the door, past the shocked nurse and down the maze of hallways, towards the waiting room. She hides her face as best she can, blocking it with her hair and wiping away tears, finally shoving her way past the nurse and through the doors. 

Both Blakes jump out of their chairs when they see her burst into the waiting room, but she sees Bellamy first. His face is open and soft, and she’s remembering the conversation they’d started outside her mother’s office, and makes a choice. She throws her arms around his shoulders  and presses her face into his neck. He smells like summer rain, and when his arms wrap tightly around her waist, she doesn’t care that she’s spent weeks hating him or that he thinks she’s a ridiculous, spoiled little rich girl. She feels so safe tucked against him, his muscled arms and broad shoulders providing a perfect cage against the world, until all she can sense is his warmth and his scent and everything is just  _ Bellamy _ . 

Octavia stands in stunned silence for a moment, seeing, but not quite registering the sight in front of her. Clarke sobs quietly against Bellamy’s neck, and he rubs his hands up and down her back, muttering words of comfort quietly. Octavia clears her throat, and Clarke jumps back, tucking her hair behind both ears and sputtering apologies. She wipes away tears and crosses her arms over her chest as Bellamy’s hands slide off her waist and slip into his pockets. They refuse to look at each other until Clarke speaks, voice ragged. “They’re putting him in hospice,” she says, toeing a ragged sneaker against the linoleum floor. “It metastasized. Lungs, Chest lining. Everywhere. They can’t --” her voice breaks on a sob. “They can’t do anything more.”

“Cancer,” Bellamy says, voice low and cautious, as if he’s trying not to spook her. 

Clarke nods and ducks her head. “Pancreatic,” she mutters. “They found out just as I was applying for majors. Didn’t tell me until a few months ago.” 

“Clarke,” Octavia says, “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

Clarke shakes her head, and her curls fall back in front of her face. Bellamy has to stop himself from reaching out to smooth them away. “No, I’m fine, I can drive myself.”

Bellamy shakes his head, as if to clear it, and speaks up. “Don’t be ridiculous, you’re in no condition to drive.” He turns to his sister. “O, you drive Clarke back to Jaha, and I’ll go back to  Walden Hall. I can crash there; Shaw owes me a favor.” 

Clarke’s head jerks up. “Don’t be stupid. You’re staying with us.” 

Bellamy looks surprised as he sputters out an explanation. “No, I -- I mean, I’m already imposing -- Shaw’s not so bad I just --” He glances desperately at his sister, who shrugs helplessly. “You don’t want me around, not tonight, and Shaw owes me one. He’ll be grateful to get me off his back.”

“You’re staying with us,” Clarke says, tilting her chin up and speaking determinedly. “And it’s not Shaw I’m worried about. His roommate, McCreary, is in my Chem class and he creeps me out. You’re not staying with them.” She’s fighting for control, even if it’s over something as simple as this. 

Bellamy sees the clench of her jaw and the residual tears  in her eyes and sighs. “Fine. If it makes you feel better, princess.”

For once, she doesn’t protest the nickname, seeming shell shocked at his sudden cooperation. “Alright,” she says, too loudly and abruptly, still speaking around a lump in her throat. “Yeah, um…” Clarke clears her throat. Bellamy shuffles his feet and looks anywhere but at her. “Okay.” 

“Come on,” Octavia says, steering Clarke towards the door. “We’re going home.” It takes Bellamy a second to follow them, and Clarke’s face heats up, feeling his eyes on her back. 

When they reach Clarke’s car, Octavia holds her hands out for the keys, and Clarke hands them over wordlessly, dropping into the passenger seat and sliding down until her knees are level with her face, feet propped up on the dash. Octavia doesn’t question her, remembering what it felt like when her mother was diagnosed. 

The car ride home is silent and melancholy. Clarke glares at her kneecaps like they’ve done something horrible, and Octavia keeps her eyes on the road, not reaching out for the radio or attempting conversation, content to let Clarke sit in her own thoughts, at least for a while. She’s actually startled when Clarke finally speaks up. “That thing --” Clarke starts, “With your brother, I --” she clears her throat. “I wasn’t --” 

Octavia stops her before she can get any further. “Don’t worry about it.” 

“What?”

“He’s a better hugger, I get it,” Octavia cracks a dry smile, “but you realize you can’t hate him anymore, right?” 

Clarke avoids her gaze by staring out the darkened window, fighting the small smile growing on her face. “Yeah.”

She thinks it was that afternoon, in her mother’s office. His face when he saw her, when he realized who her father was, looked so -- no, apologetic wasn’t strong enough of a word. Contrite? Guilty? He looked so incredibly  _ sorry _ , like he’d finally realized the weight bearing down on her shoulders in that very moment, and he was berating himself for not seeing it sooner. And then when she’d, quite literally, thrown herself into his arms -- he’d held on, wrapped his arms around his waist and buried his face in her hair and whispered words of comfort into her skin until the rest of the world seemed to melt away.

The memory sends heat rushing to her face, and she ducks her chin, hoping that Octavia can’t see her blushing. She knows she shouldn’t be thinking about Bellamy like this, lean and muscled though he may be, but instead of the usual wave of rage that accompanies the thought of him, all she can think of is the way his arms locked around her, biceps tense against her sides, broad shoulders pushed against her face. 

Octavia clears her throat and Clarke jerks her head up. “What?” she asks irritably.

Octavia, much to her friend’s frustration, laughs. “You’re still thinking about him, aren’t you?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clarke replies, turning away from the driver and settling against the window.

Octavia changes lanes, heading towards their exit. “Clarke,” she says, as if giving an ultimatum, “I may not understand what you’ve got going on with my brother,” here, she holds up a hand to silence Clarke’s protest, “but I’m not blind.” Octavia pulls off the freeway, and navigates traffic for a moment before saying, “Talk to him. God knows you both need it.” 

It’s quiet the rest of the way home. Bellamy’s honda is already in the parking lot when they pull in, and Clarke pauses momentarily, staring at it with a lump of dread in her chest.  _ c’mon _ , she thinks, _ it was one hug. Get over yourself _ . She climbs out of the car and heads into the building with Octavia. 

Bellamy’s sitting in the hallway when they arrive, head tipped back against the wall, eyes closed. Octavia curses under her breath and fumbles for her keys, and Clarke stands awkwardly beside her, unintentionally looming over Bellamy. His skin has an unhealthy, yellowish tinge under the fluorescent lights, but Clarke’s hands still itch for charcoal and paper, to capture the sharp line of his jaw, the swoop of his dark eyelashes, the smattering of freckles across his straight, narrow nose.  Bellamy may be frustrating (as well as intelligent and snarky and possibly incredibly sweet), but he is also the perfect artist’s model, and she knows more than a couple girls who would do unspeakable things for those cheekbones. 

Her coat brushes against the top of his head and his eyes snap open, something unidentifiable flashing in them as he realizes who is standing above him. He catches her gaze. Something electric crackles between them and Clarke takes an involuntary step back, muttering an incoherent apology. 

Octavia pushes the creaky old door open and steps inside the room, already throwing her bag on her bed and pulling her coat off, and Bellamy catches the door, arm stretched above Clarke’s head. Her traitorous heart trips over itself when she catches a whiff of his deodorant. 

Nobody speaks as the three get ready for bed. Clarke’s shirt lands on Bellamy halfway through the night. He smiles to himself, and says nothing, rolling over to face Octavia’s bed. Neither of them get much sleep.

Bellamy is gone when Clarke wakes up the next morning. She calls Raven as she gets dressed and asks to meet her for breakfast at IHOP. 

Raven shows up and plops herself down in the chair opposite Clarke, propping her crutches up on the table. “What’s up, Griffin?” She says, and this is what Clarke loves about her friend. Blunt, concise, and straight to the point. Raven Reyes and sugarcoating never coexist for long. 

Clarke stirs her coffee thoughtfully, fingers lingering on the battered spoon before she finally finds her voice. “Mom’s putting Dad in hospice.” 

Raven’s knuckles go white on the handle of her coffee mug. “I thought --” 

“I know,” Clarke says, “But that doesn’t matter. It went untreated for too long there’s --” she chokes on her words, and Raven covers her friend’s pale, shaking fingers with her own. “There’s nothing they can do now.” 

“Clarke…” Raven says quietly, and Clarke smiles, tilting her head back against the tears threatening to flow. 

“Really, Raven, I’m okay,” she says, not looking at the other girl. 

“Like hell you’re okay,” Raven protests, “You’re staying with me tonight. You shouldn’t have to deal with Bellamy on top of this, too.” 

Clarke smirks, letting out a small, watery laugh. “I thought you said he wasn’t that bad,” she says, and Raven smiles guiltily. 

“I was mostly trying to be sympathetic,” she says, letting one side of her face tilt up into a smile, as well. 

“Thanks,” Clarke laughs, and removes her hand, “But…” she trails off, and Raven leans back in her seat, quirking up an eyebrow in curiosity. Clarke goes pink and stares at her mug, suddenly interested in the dull green stripe on the rim. “He’s really not terrible.” Raven’s smirk widens into a victorious grin. She opens her mouth, no doubt to begin spouting ‘I told you so’s, but Clarke cuts her off. “I said not terrible, and that’s all I’m going to say.”

 

“C’mon Griffin,” Raven pleads, “Spill!” She knows they’re not done talking about Clarke’s parents, but she figures her friend needs the distraction. 

Clarke tells her everything, of course. The waiter interrupts them to ask for an order and Raven looks practically murderous but asks for her customary heap of chocolate chip pancakes, anyway. She has to bite her knuckles to keep from bursting out laughing when Clarke tells her how she practically threw herself into Bellamy’s arms at the hospital.

“I have to say it!” Raven crows.

“You really don’t,” Clarke says, feigning exasperation.

“I knew you’d jump him eventually!”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“I know. It’s a curse.”Clarke would really like to kill whoever taught Raven how to use those dark brown eyes to her advantage.

After her classes, Clarke meets up with Raven at the engineering dorms and the two girls settle in with an enormous bowl of popcorn and Netflix. Three hours later, they’re laugh-crying uncontrollably and Clarke thanks whatever gods there may be for Raven Reyes. 

 

 

The next weekend, Octavia invites her out to another party. She’s one of the more popular freshmen in their dorm, and dating Lincoln means she almost always has access to alcohol on Friday nights. Clarke usually goes, but this time she declines, opting instead to go for a walk around downtown. It’s the last of the warm summer evenings in Autumn, and she puts on a sundress and a light jacket, her headphones playing the soft indie pop she only listens to when she wants to be alone. There are university students in all the corner bars, hanging on to the last shreds of summer in the air. Her friends from her biochemistry lab wave to her from inside a fast food restaurant, and she waves back, but doesn’t stop to chat. The past few days have left her a lot to process. The betrayal of her mother still stings, but as she walks and thinks, the choice starts to make sense. Dwelling on it is difficult, and her thoughts turn to easier things to deal with. 

Like her new and unfortunate sympathy for Bellamy. He hasn’t redeemed himself completely, but perhaps enough for her to give him another chance. She’s still uncertain, but she takes it as a sign when an opportunity presents itself. LockBox is on the next corner, the bar that Raven had mentioned Bellamy worked at. She pauses at the crosswalk, shifting her weight in her sandals, her blue sundress fluttering in the light breeze. The sun had set less than an hour previous, and the sky is still blue, the light gray and dusky. Seafret dances in her headphones, and the soft piano invokes a sense of possibility. She crosses the street and opens the door. 

Luckily, Bellamy is behind the bar. Taking a seat at the end near the window, she watches him work. As it turns out, extrovert looks good on him. She’s seen him pissed, sullen, hungover, sleeping, sorry, but never really happy, or carefree. She knows some aspect of the smile is false, but he laughs with his coworker as they weave around each other. The other bartender is pretty, with curly light brown hair and a ready smile, and they obviously know each other well. She notices Clarke before Bellamy does, but when she goes to serve her, Bellamy puts a hand on her arm, and steps up in her place. “Hey,” he says, his eyes cautious, not sure of how she’s going to react. 

“Hi,” she answers, and the tingling in her chest feels less like anger this time, more like anticipation, perhaps. 

It’s his turn to say something, he realizes. “What can I get you?” he asks, at the same time she says “I feel really bad --” 

She laughs. “I’m not here to order anything,” she says, “I’m here to… negotiate.” 

The expression on his face twists into one of confusion. He still looks wary, like at any second they’ll be back to their standard, and she’ll be shouting in his face like she wants to kill him again. “...negotiate?” he asks, “negotiate what?” 

She stares at the counter, huffs out a short, humorless laugh. “A truce?” she replies, “maybe just-- hating each other less.” Fidgeting with the silver bands that adorn her fingers, she thinks, and he waits. “I was--” she takes a breath. “I was too quick to judge you. And you didn’t deserve that.” Octavia was right. She barely gave him a chance to make any other kind of impression, and when he showed up at the hospital, he proved himself worthy of a second chance. 

“I made it easy, though,” he says. She looks up, and he’s not looking at her, just watching her twist her delicate rings around and around pale fingers. The one on her pointer finger has a tiny, snarling lion in the place a stone would be. It fits her. “I didn’t give you much reason to like me in the first place.” 

“No,” She laughs, “You definitely didn’t.” Finally, he looks up, peering through long, dark eyelashes, and their eyes meet. It’s the first time she’s seen them so perfectly soft, without grief or the threat of anger. She feels like she can’t look too long, for fear of falling into them. 

Bellamy’s an asshole. There’s no way around that. He’s grumpy and sullen and overprotective, but that night, when she threw herself at the wrong Blake, he accepted her without question. He held her and let her cry, whispered the things she needed to hear. There’s something soft, underneath the bluster and the cynicism and the disillusionment. Something born of hardship, and his own knowledge of grief. She wants to see it again. 

“Why did you?” she asks, finally breaking the moment, her eyes dropping back to her hands. 

“Why did I what?” 

“Come, that night.” she says, her eyes flickering across his face, to her hands and back, like she wants to watch him answer but she’s not quite sure what she’s going to see. “To the hospital.” 

“Your dad,” he says immediately, quickly enough that it startles her. “I saw you and your dad outside your mom’s office and you just --” her heart is beating fast enough that she hopes he can’t hear it. “You looked so scared. And then Octavia told me what happened and I couldn’t --” his voice breaks and he clears his throat. “I couldn’t leave you alone to deal with that.” 

“Thank you,” she says, small and quiet. 

She must have cracked something, because he keeps talking. “Also because I felt bad,” he says, the words becoming a torrent, like he’s held them back long enough. “Because I thought I knew you, knew your type and the kind of person you were and I was so -- I was so, so wrong. And I needed you to know that I was sorry.” He reaches out, and her hands still as she plays with her jewelry. He hesitates, but only for a second before he wraps his hands around hers, asking her to look at him. She does, and her face is so open it hurts. “Because I am. Sorry, I mean. All the things I said --” 

Squeezing his hand, she stops him. “It’s okay,” she says, “You didn’t know. You couldn’t have.” 

“Still.” he brushes his thumb over one of her fingers. Her fingernails are light blue. “I’m sorry.” His hands are warm and rough, and a part of her never, never wants to let go. “And I’m --” He clears his throat, pushes his eyebrows together, still addressing her hands. “I’m here. If you -- If you need anyone. Uh, anything.” He lets her hands go, shoves his own into the pockets of his black apron. “I know what it’s like, is all.” 

Reluctantly, she pulls her hands back towards her. He’s blustering still, but not from anger. Apologies, like first impressions, are not his forte. “You do?” 

He’s going to tell her the story -- he wants to -- but at that moment a large group of boisterous frat boys burst through the doors, and Gina clears her throat behind him. He is, after all, still at work. Clarke watches his walls come ratcheting back up, the customer service smile back in place in an instant. “Some other time,” he says, backing toward the center of the bar. 

“That better be a promise,” she calls after him. God, his smile really is beautiful. 

“Anything for a princess,” he calls back, and she gives him smile of her own. The nickname this time is softer, a friendly comfort rather than a pointed jab. She watches him turn back to the bar, flipping into the Bellamy she’d seen when she walked in, confident and smooth and seconds away from a smile. Something, she knew, had changed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and now Clarke has changed her perspective too!!  
>  now things can really get fun...   
> remember to comment, and subscribe to keep up!!


	7. promise made, promise kept

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke never counted herself as a hopeful person. She is an analytical mind, never relying on slim chances or blind faith. But then her dad got sick, and it was too hard to consider the conclusion that the evidence pointed to. And she swore that her foolish hope for her father’s life was an exception, rather than the rule, but as time went on and recovery percentages got smaller, it had leaked into all other aspects of her life. As long as she’s still breathing, there’s hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me? updating on time? more likely than you think. remember to comment bc I live for that sweet sweet feedback

Me: 

Hey what’s clarke’s # 

 

The Real Roman Empress Her Majesty Octavia: 

omg 

y what do u need it for 

 

Me: 

Why does that matter 

Also stop changing your name in my phone this is excessive

 

Octavia:

bet u changed it back to something boring like my actual name or someth 

jeez dude have a sense of humor 

 

Me: 

Could you focus please 

Clarke’s number what is it 

 

Octavia: 

Tell me what you need it for 

 

Me: 

Fuck off I’ll ask someone else 

… 

Ur the only person i know for sure has it can you just tell me please 

 

Octavia: 

What! Do! You need it! For! 

 

Me: 

I just wanna set up coffee I made a promise I wanna keep 

 

Octavia: 

OMG 

 

Me: 

Please calm down 

 

Octavia: 

I WILL NOT 

COFFEE?? 

A PROMISE??? WHAT WAS IT???

 

Me: 

Literally it’s nothing 

Octavia: 

then tell me what it was 

coward 

 

Me: 

I promise ur going to be wildly disappointed

 

Octavia:

TELLLLLLLL MEEEEE

 

Me:

She came by work last night and we didn’t get to finish our conversation the way I wanted to 

Can I have her number now please 

 

Octavia: 

ur a boring piece of shit 

here 

 

The next message is Clarke’s contact, complete with a masterpiece of a photo depicting Clarke with two colored pencils through a messy topknot, pulling a face at the camera. Bellamy chuckles and saves the contact to his phone. 

Me:

His fingers hover over the keyboard, unsure of how to proceed. Had she actually wanted to hear the story? Was their uncertain silence what she was looking for, just a truce that ensured mutual tolerance, but nothing more? And what was that incessant fluttering in his chest, now that he was sure, at least, he no longer hated her? 

He swears and drops his phone on his chest, stretching out on the sofa. Miller is in the kitchen, studying, and he looks up and pulls out one of his headphones. “ ‘dyou say my name?” Bellamy grunts in the negative, and Miller returns to marking up his script, muttering under his breath. 

This really shouldn’t be this hard. 

 

Me: 

Did you still want the rest of the story?

 

His heart in his throat, he presses send. 

 

Unknown Number: 

Did you still want the rest of the story? 

She gets the text during a biology lecture. It has to be Bellamy. There’s no reason for it to be anyone else. The answer is clear when the next couple texts come through. 

Unknown Number: 

Shit 

This is bellamy by the way 

 

She chuckles, and picks up her phone to text back. She types out three different messages before finally hitting send.  

 

Me: 

I think I could be persuaded 

 

When her response comes through, his heart leaps unfairly. They work out a day and a time, and Bellamy is tempted to text back ‘it’s a date’ but this isn’t a romcom, so instead he sends back a thumbs up emoji. You know, like an idiot. 

Clarke huffs out a laugh when she gets a thumbs up emoji in response to her confirmation to their plans. For the first time, she lets herself remember the first night they met, how smooth he seemed to be, and smiles to herself. He’s really just a dork. She tucks her phone into her sweatshirt pocket and tries not to look forward to it. She’s seen him soft and sympathetic only once, and one instance of friendliness over months of hostility does not a good guy make. But -- there’s hope, at least. 

Clarke never counted herself as a hopeful person. She is an analytical mind, never relying on slim chances or blind faith. But then her dad got sick, and it was too hard to consider the conclusion that the evidence pointed to. And she swore that her foolish hope for her father’s life was an exception, rather than the rule, but as time went on and recovery percentages got smaller, it had leaked into all other aspects of her life. As long as she’s still breathing, there’s hope. 

 

 

Bellamy is already nervous. And late. He’d parked down a few blocks fifteen minutes ago and waited until an appropriate time to get out of his car so he wouldn’t be waiting in the coffeeshop for an absurd amount of time. However, he underestimated how long it would take him to get four blocks and now he’s fucking late. Fists shoved in the pockets of his jacket, he keeps his head down, absentmindedly counting the cracks in the sidewalk to avoid dwelling on what he’s about to share. His hood blocks his peripheral vision, the rain speckling black on his dark grey jeans. 

Not many people know Bellamy’s story. Not all of it, anyway. He built himself up. He got out. He sees no reason to talk about or dwell on things that don’t matter anymore. But Clarke doesn’t need to know about what happened when he was a kid. She just needs to know that he knows what she’s going through. Losing a parent is unthinkable, and for Clarke, who actually has a relationship with her father, it must be worse. He just wants her to know he’ll be there for her, if she needs him. 

When he gets to the Bunker Cafe, he stops outside the window before going in. Clarke is sitting at one of the dark wood tables, drawing. The cafe looks warm, rustic lights glowing on the lacquered tables and through her hair. It’s down, and she holds the front half of it out of her face with her hand, her forehead resting on the heel of her palm. She’s wearing a grey and white sweater that looks old, well worn, and about two sizes too big for her, the sleeves rolled back over her hands. Finishing a stroke with her pencil, Clarke pushes back in her chair and blows out a breath. She sweeps the eraser shreds off the sketchpad and then looks up, and finds him on the other side of the glass. 

Bellamy waves, just the slight raise of his left hand. Clarke gives him a bewildered smile and waves back. He hurries toward the door. Clarke’s smiling at him when he enters, soft but still guarded. Like she wants to believe that he’s not who he’s demonstrated himself to be, but she’s wary. He wishes she didn’t have a reason to be. 

After getting coffee from the barista, he takes off his jacket and sits down, pushing the sleeves of his henley up to his elbows. He misses Clarke’s short, sharp intake of breath. “Hey,” he says. His voice is breathless, and he’s hoping Clarke doesn’t notice. 

“Hey,” she replies. She puts her elbows on the table and laces her fingers together, leaning toward him. “Thanks for texting me.” His eyes are heavy with apprehension, and he won’t look at her. Something in her chest solidifies, and she realizes this is huge for him. Octavia won’t talk about her family, still, and she’s been rooming with Clarke for two months. For Bellamy to even want to talk to her -- it must be difficult. 

“Yeah,” he says, and swallows. “You -- I want you to hear this.”Wrapping his hands around the mug, he stares at them, working up the nerve to say what he needs to. Clarke waits. “My mom --” He stops, and his fingers flex and release. His shoulders are almost shaking, and Clarke wants to reach out and touch him, just to say  _ I’m here. You’re going to be okay _ . But he seems lost in his own world, and they barely know each other, so she doesn’t. “My mom wasn’t a good mom,” he says, “but we didn’t love her any less.” He takes a deep breath. “Even though maybe we should have.” He shakes his head, like clearing cobwebs from memories. 

There’s a pause, and he sits up and pushes away from her. He still won’t look up. “She died when I was fifteen.” He lets it out like a breath. Tense, he waits for the sympathy, the awkward silence, the meaningless apology. But it doesn’t come. Instead, Clarke’s open hand appears in the middle of the table. Her fingernails are midnight blue, with silver glitter that sparkles in the light. He takes it.  

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and he only tightens his fingers around hers. 

“We were in and out of the system anyway,” Her other hand comes around his, and it’s easier to watch their fingers intertwine then look at her face. “ But when Mom -- when she died, Octavia’s biological dad’s third cousin by marriage or something pulled us out. Charles Pike. But he didn’t like me much. I barely lasted a year.” 

“Where did you go?” Her question is quiet but it triggers something in him, and the moment seems to withdraw. 

He pulls his hand back and picks up his coffee. Takes a long sip. “I don’t -- it doesn’t --” 

He looks up at her, recognizing his usual defense mechanisms are what landed them in this situation in the first place, but definitely not ready to share the rest of the story. His eyes are torn   open, and Clarke sees yet another Bellamy behind them -- a man haunted, a past yet unconfronted. “That’s not the point,” he says. “The point is --” He drops his head, heaves a breath. “You wanted to know how I knew what it was like.”

She nods, and he takes her hand again. “I had to watch her waste away,” he continues, his voice rough and low. “All she cared about was her next hit. She stopped working, stopped eating. We hadn’t seen her in a month when she overdosed. I know --” his voice cracks. He swallows. “I know how it feels, I promise.” Story told, he lets go of her hands, puts his own between his knees, and stares at the table. “I just needed you to know.” It’s quiet, and Bellamy can hear his pulse pounding in his ears. He thought he was ready to tear open this wound, thought the scar had been healed enough to prod at, but now he feels like he’s bleeding, in front of someone. In front of Clarke. 

“Bellamy,” she says, and he looks up at her through his curls. She’s struggling to keep her face neutral, but her eyes are soft, almost relieved. “Thank you.” 

It’s enough to make him relax, the tension in his shoulders dissipating, and he lifts his chin. “What?” 

“Really,” she says, and reaches out again. Tentatively, he takes her hand. “Thank you.” And he smiles, really smiles, for the first time in a while. 

 

 

Three months pass. Jake Griffin doesn’t get any better, or any worse. When there’s a scare or it’s been too long without word, Clarke texts Bellamy. She stops complaining about him to Octavia. He stops complaining about her to Miller. They don’t tell anyone about the conversation at the Bunker, but the missing tension at parties gives them away. Even having never discussed it, they never provide answers, no matter how much they are individually begged. 

Clarke introduces Raven to Octavia and the three girls spend more and more time together. 

She spends Thanksgiving in Mecha Hall with Raven, eating Froot Loops out of the box and yelling at Monica and Chandler to get together already. Christmas break is a lonely and cold two weeks, spent closeted in her room and as far away from her mother as possible. They spend Christmas Eve in the hospice ward, eating what the hospital optimistically called a “Turkey Dinner” and making awkward small talk. There’s no tree on Christmas morning, only a letter and a small box on the kitchen counter. Clarke cries when she sees her Dad’s watch inside, reads the profuse apologies that accompany it. 

They spend New Year’s in the hospice ward, too, but Clarke is talking to them now. Things get better. 

Life goes on. Clarke ponders how strange that is, late at night when Octavia has long fallen asleep and it’s just Clarke and her thoughts. Her father is dying and life just -- goes on. She goes to class and eats in the dining hall and visits him in the hospital, when she knows her mother is working. (He tries to talk about it, but she ignores him and beats him at Uno again.) Her art class moves on from still-lifes and she nearly cries with relief. Raven and Octavia begin to feature heavily in her sketchbook, much to their annoyance. 

Her attempts at the male figure always descend pathetically into studies of tan, long-fingered hands and snarls of curly black hair. It nudges her toward confronting some seeds of feelings she doesn’t yet want to address, so she makes Jasper and Monty start sitting for her. They tolerate it on the basis she play mario kart with them once a week. She drags Bellamy, the other two roommates, and the girls into it, as well, and it becomes tradition. It feels good, for Clarke to have some sort of family again, no matter how ridiculous and rambunctious they may be.

One night in January, game night turns out to be just Bellamy and Clarke. Murphy and Miller are at work, Octavia is on a date, Jasper and Monty went home for the weekend, and Raven refuses to drive in the heavy snow. Clarke is already there, having slept over the previous night after Bellamy had promised her homemade lasagne. (Which he delivered on. And then Omelettes in the morning. He’s convinced she’s using him for his cooking.) It’s almost 6 when she receives the last text from Raven. 

“Huh,” she says. 

Bellamy hands her the fresh bowl of popcorn (filled with M&Ms, her favorite), and she puts it on the coffee table. He vaults over the back of the couch, landing heavily next to her. She swats him on the arm for jostling her, and then again for landing on her feet. He laughs, and it’s easy thing, now. “What?” he asks, throwing popcorn up in the air and catching it in his mouth. 

“No one else is coming,” she says, her hand in mid air, still holding her phone. They stare at each other for a moment. 

“Well shit,” Bellamy says. He looks at the pile of board games on the coffee table. “We could try --” he starts, but then looks over and Clarke is already bent over the arm of the couch, rifling through her bag. “... or not.” 

She pulls out a textbook that looks so dense it kind of makes Bellamy want to puke and stares at him. “What?” Clarke is so incredibly immersed in her horrible pre-med biochemistry major she forgets that a lot of her coursework just scares the rest of her friends. 

“Well,” Bellamy says, his eyebrows raised. “I was gonna say we could try playing one of these with two people but clearly you aren’t interested.” He laughs. 

“I have homework,” she says, still holding the textbook aloft. There’s a picture of a frog on the front and he honestly has no idea what it could be for.  

Bellamy drops his head against the back of the sofa and looks at her. “It’s Saturday.” 

“It’s good to get things done early,” she protests. 

“... It’s Saturday,” he repeats, his eyes narrowing. Then he gets an idea. “Listen I know you’ve already blocked this time for socialization --” 

“How --” she starts, her brow furrowing. 

He cuts her off. “I’ve seen your planner, Princess.” 

“Bellamy --” She starts. 

“Clarke.” he stops her. “It’s a Saturday night. One game.” 

She sighs and drops her book on the floor with an incredibly loud smack. “What did you have in mind?” 

Bellamy holds up Monopoly -- the nice version in the wood case Clarke bought for the group for Christmas -- and grins. “Ready?” 

“Oh,” she laughs, “you are so dead.” 

Two hours later she owns Broadway and Park Place and he’s seriously considering murder. “Clarke,” he pleads, his hair adorably poofy from the number of times he’s run his hands through it. “I’m flat broke in real life, this is meant to be escapism.” 

She grins and rests her chin on the top of her beer bottle. “Invest in real estate early and you won’t have this issue.” Clarke’s a little bit tipsy, and definitely having way too much fun. Her smile is wider than he’s ever seen it, and for once, she doesn’t seem to be carrying the happiness of anyone but herself. 

He drags his hands down his face and looks at her hotel-studded edge of the board. “I really, really hate you right now.” He crosses his arms and leans them on the coffee table. They’re both sitting on the floor opposite each other, on appropriated couch cushions. Clarke has her hair up in her little topknot, and is wearing one of his sweatshirts, which she’d begged for after he refused to raise his heat any more. It’s really unfairly adorable. 

“I know,” she chirps. She flicks her eyebrows up and down. “Rollllll the dice, Bellamy.” 

He’s on the railroad on her edge of the board, which he owns. “I feel very safe here, thanks.” Anything under 6 and he’s in her territory. He owns two and a half of the other sides of the board but the princess owns the nice part of town and he’s in trouble. But, she’s having fun and her eyes are shining, so he doesn’t really mind. 

“C’mon Bell.” she taunts. “Roll ‘em.” 

Slowly, he picks up the dice from the center of the board. Clarke continues to make funny faces at him as he raises the dice to his face and blows on them. The ritual is meant to be lucky, but he does it mostly to watch her face. Drunk Clarke is even worse than covering up her emotions than Sober Clarke, and the brief flicker of pure panic is worth it. He lets them drop. 

“YES!” She crows. “Four, bitch! Boardwalk, motherfucker! Gimme! My! Money!” She does a little dance and Bellamy laughs as he puts together his last 500 bucks of colorful fake money and hands it over. 

“Oh yeah,” he says as she continues to celebrate. “Glad you’re enjoying this.” She plucks it out of his hand and waves it back and forth in his face. “So happy this is important to you.” He lets one arm fall to the side of the board as Clarke continues to happy dance and sort the bills that were recently his into her inventory. He just smiles as she revels in her win. 

She looks up, smile still open-mouthed and bright. “What?” she asks. He can see the silver of her necklace underneath his dark grey sweatshirt, glinting against smooth, pale skin. Her blue eyes are sparkling with glee, and her unruly hair is coming loose of her bun. 

“Nothing,” he says, but he’s smiling too, “just, with everything, I’m glad you get to be happy.” His hand is opened and relaxed on the table, and he squashes the surprise that sparks in his chest when she takes it. 

“Thanks,” she says, “I’m grateful I have friends that provide moments for it.” 

“Friends, huh?” he asks, smoothing his thumb over the back of her knuckles. 

She squeezes his hand, bites her lip. “Yeah,” she says. “Friends.” He’s the first to pull his hand back. Clarke’s looking at him a little too long and he’s seen Tipsy Clarke get handsy enough times that he needs to squash this now. He’s sure it’s just the alcohol, and not him. He looks over his shoulder out the window, where the streetlight illuminates the still thickly falling snow. She follows his gaze. “Ew,” she says, screwing up her face, “Gross.” 

“Yeah,” he sighs. “You really don’t want to be driving home in this.” When he swivels back around she’s looking at him with her I’m-trying-to-wheedle-something-out-of-you eyes. Again, it’s unfairly adorable. Bellamy stopped drinking an hour ago to prevent himself from wanting to do something about it. 

“Can I stay another night?” she says, “Please?” Bad for his sanity, good for her safety. “We can watch a movie?” 

He stands up and stretches, twists his back to crack it. She watches his eyes go soft when he looks back at her. “Sure,” he says. “You clean this up, and I’ll make more popcorn.” He replays the conversation as the popcorn hums in the microwave.  _ Friends _ , he thinks. He doesn’t know if he knows how to be friends with Clarke. Considering they made out the first night they met and then immediately went to hating each other, so there’s not exactly a baseline to go back to. He’s still frustratingly attracted to her, and  _ friends _ aren’t usually expected to act on it. 

But Clarke’s vulnerable and grieving and the last time there were high emotions involved with her they were screaming at each other. He leans his head against a cabinet. So, he’ll wait. He’ll sit on his feelings like he always does, until they go away or until Clarke is in a better place. But the latter is incredibly unlikely to happen, so he’ll just wait for them to disappear, and be a good friend in the meantime. 

The microwave dings and he pulls himself up and does his best to clear his expression. They’re out of M&Ms so instead he dumps in a box of junior mints and takes them back to the couch. Clarke is sitting up on the couch, lap covered by her favorite fuzzy blanket, fingers laced in her lap. “Ready?” she asks. 

He takes a deep breath, the exhale stuttering on its way out. “Yeah,” he says, and hands her the bowl. “I hope Junior Mints are okay, you ate all of the M&Ms.” She takes it and he falls over the back of the couch again. 

“You okay?” she asks. He slides down into a slouch and tosses an arm over his head. Motioning for the remote, he avoids her gaze. She hands it to him. 

“Yeah,” he reassures her, and then flashes her a smile. “Why?” 

She shrugs, still wary. “No reason. You just --” she pauses, “You seem tense is all.” 

“I was just unfairly robbed, practically at gunpoint,” he grumbles, and that’s enough to make her laugh. 

“Okay,” she says, “I deserved that.” He finds a movie he knows she likes and has already seen because he knows she’ll fall asleep halfway through. “Oh!” she says, and settles in. “I love this one.” 

“I know,” he says, soft enough that she won’t hear. “I know.” 

He’s right, and halfway through the movie her eyes start to close. But the alcohol must still be taking effect, because she scooches down and lays her head on his leg, tucking her arms against her chest. It feels a little awkward, at least to him, and he waits for her to readjust and sit up, but she doesn’t. “Uh, princess?” he whispers, but she must already be dozing, because all he gets is a non committal hum. “Okay, I guess,” he says under his breath, and leaves her there. A few minutes later, the arm thrown over his head starts to fall asleep, and he lets it fall, his hand finding a place on Clarke’s shoulder. She’s completely out, breathing steady and slow. He traces his fingers along her arm, and the tension in her shoulders releases. 

He lets his head drop against the back of the couch. He is so done for. 

 

Clarke’s art class starts bringing models in in the middle of February, old saggy men and rotund  ladies. A couple of buxom, confident women that make Clarke’s ears go pink and cause her to hide behind her easel as much as possible. One of them leaves her number on Clarke’s easel at the end of class, and they go on a few coffee dates before things fizzle out. When she tells Bellamy, he goes quiet for the rest of game night, and they don’t talk about it again. 

She’s perfecting a sketch for the class one night when her phone dings with a text from him. She fishes it out of her sweatshirt pocket and bites down on a smile. He’s at work, but since it’s Tuesday, it’s dead and he’s incomprehensibly bored, sending her long strings of emojis and making her guess the movie they correspond to. So far she’s gotten three out of ten correct. Bellamy isn’t great at emojis. 

She’s in her floor’s lounge, her art supplies strewn across the table. It’s late, and she and Octavia have been studying in silence for hours. Octavia is sitting sideways in the luridly green armchair, her headphones half off, squinting angrily at her online chemistry homework. She looks up at Clarke’s notification in time to see the quiet smile Clarke is hiding. 

“I’m glad you guys don’t hate each other anymore,”  she says offhandedly. 

Clarke’s head jerks up, the sweatshirt string she was chewing falling out of her mouth. “What?” 

Octavia’s head lolls back against the chair. She gestures to Clarke’s phone. “That’s Bellamy, right?” 

Clarke’s face transforms several times in a very small period of time. “Yeah,” she finally says. 

Octavia’s grin is nearly feral. Shrugging, she says, “I’m glad you guys don’t hate each other anymore.” 

“Yeah,” Clarke says again, “He’s a good friend.” 

“Yeah,” Octavia coughs, “Friend.” 

Clarke arranges her face into her version of deadpan. “What are you implying.” 

Octavia sighs and slips her headphones off and around her neck. “Look, I don’t know what’s happening --” she waves her hand in the general direction of Clarke’s phone, “-- there, but I’m just…” she leans her head on her hand. “I’m glad you guys get along.” Clarke feels mildly reassured, like maybe Octavia is just glad she doesn’t have to referee her roommate and her brother anymore, but then she says, “Bellamy needs someone like you in his life.” 

Clarke, to put it lightly, chokes. “It’s not -- We’re not --” 

“Honestly, I don’t actually care what you guys are,” Octavia interrupts. “Bellamy needs someone who challenges him, and you need someone who takes care of you.” 

Clarke’s brain is reeling. “Bellamy doesn’t take care of me,” she blurts defensively. But then her brain cues up the hospital, and the text conversations, and every night she’s spent on his couch, staving off the sadness with his bad dad jokes as he feeds her actual food and puts up with her cold feet and her snoring. Octavia watches the face journey silently. “Okay, I see your point,” Clarke eventually concedes. “But I don’t want to take advantage of him --” she starts again. 

Octavia grunts and rolls her eyes. “Oh you so aren’t.” She blows her hair out of her face. “He’s just like that, I promise.” Clarke raises her eyebrows. “Miller actually thanked me for getting Bellamy off his back.” Octavia’s cat-grin returns. “Of course that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with him starting to hang out with you.” 

“You need to stop,” Clarke says, all thoughts of homework completely absent from her mind. This is -- a lot of new information. Octavia shrugs and goes back to her chemistry homework, leaving Clarke to process. So yeah, she’s been sitting on some shit since they talked that day at the Bunker. The sparks between her and Bellamy never died, only transformed from abject hatred into a kind of simmering tension that has yet to release. She’d been repressing it under the excuse that Octavia would consider it a betrayal of trust,. But now his little sister seems… okay with it, encouraging even. 

Clarke’s eyes land on her sketch book as she remembers all the unfinished sketches of long, tan, fingers flowing into calloused palms, of briar-bush, inky black curls and warm brown eyes floating above a sea of freckles. Then they drift to her current sketch, a young man from her previous class with a  mostly shaved head and numerous tattoos, scars covering his back. A devious plan forms in her brain, and she cues up Miller’s contact. She has an idea. 

One frigid Friday afternoon, Clarke puts on the three layers necessary to even step outside and forges her way across campus to her life drawing class, head bent against the wind. The warm room is a welcome change, but she almost stumbles out laughing when she sees who’s sitting on the stand in the middle of the classroom. 

He’s spread out across a red couch, facing the nearly-full rows of students, back to her, but Clarke would recognize that mop of dark hair anywhere, tousled and perfect above a broad, and very bare, set of freckled shoulders. She stops dead in the doorway, amazed, and Professor Vera Kane turns to look at her, taking in her shocked expression and hands, frozen in the process of taking off her hat and scarf. “Is there a problem, Miss Griffin?” she asks in her slow, melodious voice. 

Bellamy’s shoulders tense at the sound of her name. Clarke shakes her head, snickering, and crosses quickly to her assigned easel in the front row. 

This is going to be a very, very interesting class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...stay tuned ;)


	8. revelations & awkward eye contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lunging forward, he grabs her around the waist and they both fall into a snowdrift. Clarke cackles, trying to wiggle free as he crawls up her body. She’s still attempting to throw snow, so he pins her wrists down on either side of her head. They’re both breathing heavily, the air between them clouding with mist. “Hi,” she whispers, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She giggles and pushes her chin into the collar of her coat. “Sorry.” 
> 
> “No you aren’t,” he fires back, smiling in return, letting himself get caught in the moment. She pushes upward for an instant, but he slams her hands back down. 
> 
> “No,” she giggles, “I’m not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S WEDNESDAY, MY DUDES!!!  
> also, listen... I know /jack shit/ about hockey so I have no idea if any of what I've written here is true so if you know shit about hockey, grin and bear it and I'm sorry.   
> (the rating changed... nO! YOU'RE BLUSHING!!!)

This was bullshit. Absolute, total, complete bullshit. Miller was an asshat for making him do this. Yes, the Capitals got their ass handed to them by the Bruins and Bellamy shook on it, but a  _ life drawing class _ ?  _ Really _ ?

“Listen,” Miller had said, tossing Bellamy a beer, “Your team sucks and it’s time you learn to deal with it.” The two were participating in the weekly ritual of Friday night hockey, as well as the argument that usually accompanied it.

“The Capitals do not  _ suck _ ,” Bellamy had protested, “They’re just going through a rough season.” He’d been in the junior league when he was younger and things weren’t so bad, and, back home in DC, the guys on the team had been the paragon of excellence to his eight-year-old self. His loyalty wasn’t logical, but old habits die hard. 

Miller snorted. “Dude, they’ve been going through a rough season for like ten years. They suck.” 

Bellamy turned his gaze back to the television and took a long swig of his beer before responding. “Difference of opinion.”

“You wanna bet?”

“What are we betting?” He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.

Miller smiled mischievously. “Total dignity.” Bellamy raised an eyebrow. “If your team loses -- which they will -- you have to sign up to model for the life drawing class. I saw the sign-up in the union yesterday.”

Bellamy choked on his drink. “Why?” 

“Because it’s time for you to realize how humiliating it is that you still like the  _ Capitals _ .” 

The insult to Bellamy’s home team did the trick, and he shook on it. The game was a massacre -- the Capitals never even got a puck in the goal.

He’d tried to back out of it, but Miller pulled his ridiculous  _ real men keep their word _ card, and now he’s buck-naked in front of about 50 pretentious art majors and there isn’t a damn thing he can do about it. 

He’d done his best to cover his crotch with the white sheet draped over the back of the couch, but it’s slipping and he isn’t allowed to move and -- “Is there a problem, Miss Griffin?” His veins turn to ice. She was Pre-med.  _ Pre-med _ . What is she doing  _ here? _ His mind races, and his eyes go wide as he remembers her sitting on his couch, cursing at a fidgeting Murphy and threatening to hit him with her sketchpad. She’s getting a minor in art.

Art Minor. Life Drawing.

Oh no. Oh, NO. Bellamy’s body tightens involuntarily and the sheet slips off his leg entirely, making a couple of girls in the back row bust out into giggles.  _ This is bad, _ he thinks,  _ This is so very, very bad _ . But then he stops thinking, because a familiar curtain of curly blond hair enters his peripheral vision and the only words he can come up with are ‘fucking  _ SHIT _ .’ 

Clarke sits down in the front row, because she’s Clarke and he should have expected it, and digs in her bag for charcoal pencils, keeping her gaze firmly on the scuffed toes of her boots. She affixes a large piece of paper to her wooden easel and disappears behind it. A dull thud accompanied by an uncomfortable glance from the girl next to her means she’s dropped her forehead against the plywood board.

Bellamy shifts as subtly as he can and attempts to reposition the sheet, but his movement earns him a sharp cough from Professor Kane, and he resigns himself to his fate, flicking his eyes up to the ceiling and attempting to make them stay there. He lasts five minutes. Seven. They start to water. Three more go by. Finally, he drops his eyes back to the front row, accidentally catching Clarke’s stare directly. She emits something resembling a snort and ducks back behind her easel. Bellamy feels his face start to heat up and he casts his eyes elsewhere, doing his best to look anywhere but directly in front of him. 

It’s difficult. He knows she’s meant to be studying him, drawing him in detailed perfection, like everyone else in the room, but there’s something about the intensity of her gaze that feels different. There are a few other nervous onlookers in the room: the boy in the third row, making a pointed effort not to look at Bellamy’s crotch, the mousy girl in the middle with a paintbrush stuck through her bun, who turns so red every time he looks at her he thinks she might actually combust. 

But they’re all drawing, hands in constant motion, eyes flicking between him and their paper. Clarke isn’t. She was working quickly in the beginning, determinedly looking everywhere but his face, but now she’s slowed. She traces the lines of his long legs and chiseled body with her eyes, not referring to her drawing. She lets her eyes linger on the sharp jut of his collarbones and the muscled curves of his arms. 

Bellamy knows he’s hot. Years of one night stands and flirty patrons taught him that. But this, Clarke’s unrelenting, public scrutiny, makes him feel almost self-conscious. Her gaze travels lower, and Bellamy feels the flush prickling up the back of his neck. This is so not how he wanted the first time her seeing him naked to go. As many times as he’s imagined things developing between them, it definitely never started with him naked in front of a crowd, with Clarke front and center. This is less the stuff of fantasy and more the stuff of nightmares.

She shifts her eyes back up to his face and this time, holds his gaze. Bellamy cocks his head, only slightly, as if challenging her, and she quirks up an eyebrow and smiles, one side of her mouth tugging higher than the other. There’s laughter in her blue eyes, and Bellamy realizes what he was taking for embarrassment was actually Clarke doing her best not to break out laughing for seemingly no reason in the middle of her class. The princess is  _ enjoying _ this. 

The class finally,  _ finally _ , ends. Professor Kane tosses him a robe and steps in front of him while he stands to put it on, assigning homework. The girl next to Clarke leans over to look at her drawing as they both pack up and looks between it and the one in her hands, brow furrowed. 

“How did you capture his hands and his face so well?” she asks defensively. “They were so… complex!” Clarke smirks a little bit as the other girl studies her drawing, pride evident on her face. “Seriously though,” the girl insists, “What did you do?” She leans closer to Clarke’s easel. “This is phenomenal!”

It’s then that Clarke notices Bellamy watching her, still half-frozen on the raised pedestal. The smirk grows into a grin and she unclips the drawing and stoops to pick up her bag. “It’s nothing --” He hears her say, “Just --” She catches his eye, and he’s sure he hears her say “practice” as she drops her drawing on the professor’s desk and almost saunters out the door. 

The word hits him like an ice pick to the chest. He remembers the night Octavia had forced him to apologize to Clarke, how she’d jerked her sketchbook into her chest. He thinks about the charcoal sketches scattered over her dorm room wall. Practice. He laughs to himself as he pulls his clothes on. She didn’t need to keep checking her drawing -- she’d done it before. He’d had a suspicion -- after all, the rest of their friends had featured in Clarke’s sketchbook over the last few weeks -- but he sidles up to the desk as he pulls on his jeans, and her drawing is still on top. Her classmate is right; is is incredibly good. Then he notices the crude, cartoonish tattoo she’s drawn on his chest. It’s a crown, underneath which the word “princess” is scrawled. He smirks. He’s pretty sure she’ll get marked down for that. 

He’s zipping up his jeans when Professor Kane approaches him. “Mr. Blake!” she says cheerfully, “Thank you for volunteering today -- it really does mean a lot.” Bellamy finds it wise not to mention the fact he’s only there because his team lost a hockey game. 

“You’re welcome,” he says warily. 

Professor Kane looks vaguely like a big cat on the prowl. “The art department would very much appreciate it if you would enroll to become a regular in the rotation --” 

“You know, I really don’t think --” he starts,  backing towards where he left his sweater and coat, but Vera Kane is not to be stopped. 

“And some of the students would as well I think --” she continues towards him and he nearly trips over the podium. 

Clarke saves the day. Evidently she was waiting for him in the hall, because she opens the door again and reenters the classroom. “Hey, babe, you ready?” He swivels, a little speechless, and she savors the shock on his face. She stands on her tiptoes to speak directly into his ear. “I want dinner, come on,” She can see the shiver that runs up his spine. Whether the move was for Vera’s benefit or her own, she doesn’t care to say. 

Bellamy, to his credit, plays along. “Uh, yeah, okay,” he stutters, pulling on his sweater. Well, as best he can. “Sure… hon.” 

Clarke bites her lip to keep from laughing. “Thanks for class today, Dr. Kane!” She grabs his hand and drags him out before they can lose the charade.  Bellamy snags his coat and trips on his way out, an adorable mess of limbs. 

They make it to the hall before Clarke loses her shit completely. “I can’t believe,” she says, falling against the wood-paneled wall. “Vera was hitting on you!” She’s practically wheezing with laughter and Bellamy, at this point, is mostly just confused. That was a lot to process in a very short amount of time. 

“What was the deal with the --” he starts, the hair on the back of his neck still settling. He keeps clenching and unclenching his fist of the hand she’d grabbed, like her fingers had left imprints in between his. 

“Boyfriend thing?” she finishes. “Vera hits on all the hot male models, I was saving you.” The word ‘hot’ echoes in his chest, but, like his hand, she doesn’t notice. 

“Isn’t she like --” he starts, pulling on his coat. 

“Fifty? Yeah.” Clarke wipes her fingers underneath her eyes. “Okay,” she sighs. “I wasn’t kidding about the dinner thing, though.”

“Are we just gonna ignore what just happened, or…?” he says, scratching the back of his head. He doesn’t really want to talk about it, either but he feels like they probably should. Friends don’t usually see friends naked. Especially in front of large groups of people. 

Clarke either doesn’t hear him or just chooses not to. “Do you want to go to Alpha or Mecha?” She pulls on her duster coat and flips her hair out of the collar. “I checked and Alpha is supposed to have burritos and you know how I feel about burritos.” She digs a red white and blue toque out of the pocket and crams it down over her frizzy blond waves. 

Bellamy’s already sputtering brain backfires. The logo on the front has a familiar font and stylized hockey stick. “... you like the Capitals?” he asks. 

Clarke puts on two gray knitted fingerless gloves and pulls her hat down on her head again. “Yeah,” she says offhandedly. “I’m not an idiot.” 

He laughs, slipping his hands into his back pockets. “Well, seeing as how that’s how I got into this mess, maybe you are.” Slinging her messenger bag over her shoulder, Clarke heads for the door, clearly expecting him to follow. He scrambles after her, barely catching the door before it slams in his face. Once outside in the thickly falling snow, he curls his hands into fists in his coat pockets, and Clarke loops her arm through his so they can hear each other. 

“How did a hockey team get you naked on a pedestal?” she asks. 

Bellamy doesn’t really want to tell the story but he feels like Clarke definitely deserves an explanation. “I uh --” he coughs, “I lost a bet.” She barks out a laugh. “Also we should really talk about --” 

Clarke lets go of his arm and takes off. He lets out a sigh and watches her go, wondering if there’s something beyond the expected  _ seeing-your-friend-naked _ weird. Maybe Clarke is running from a spark that’s been fanned into something larger. They’re close to the quad, and there’s a raucous snowball fight happening in the middle of it; he recognizes Jasper’s ski goggles and Octavia’s wicked arm. He follows slowly to the edge of the grass, covered by at least six inches of snow, content to watch -- but then a a stinging ball of sleet slams into his forehead and drips down into his eyes. He scoops the melting ice off his face and looks up, finding Jasper and Clarke pointing at each other. Jasper looks genuinely afraid, and Clarke’s face -- what he can see of it -- is glowing, so he goes after the latter. 

She screeches and runs in the opposite direction, but he is momentarily distracted by his sister leaping onto his back like a fucking orangutan, rubbing snow in his face. Octavia is considerably smaller than him, but unfortunately strong, and it takes him a while to wrestle her off. Once successful, Clarke is waiting for him when he turns around, pulling out the collar of his sweater and dropping a handful of snow down his shirt. His chest feels like it’s caving in on itself, but Clarke doesn’t run, and he can’t miss his chance.

Lunging forward, he grabs her around the waist and they both fall into a snowdrift. Clarke cackles, trying to wiggle free as he crawls up her body. She’s still attempting to throw snow, so he pins her wrists down on either side of her head. They’re both breathing heavily, the air between them clouding with mist. “Hi,” she whispers, a smile tugging at the corners of  her mouth. She giggles and pushes her chin into the collar of her coat. “Sorry.” 

“No you aren’t,” he fires back, smiling in return, letting himself get caught in the moment. She pushes upward for an instant, but he slams her hands back down. 

“No,” she giggles, “I’m not.” She cocks her head, and there’s the same challenge in her eyes as in the classroom, and it sobers him immediately. There’s a subject to be addressed here. 

“Clarke...” he says. 

“Bellamy.” she whispers back. Her tone reaches deep in his stomach, heat rising up his chest and scrambling his mind. But the snow is seeping through the knees of his jeans where they’re on either side of Clarke’s hips, keeping her on the ground, reminding him. 

“We have to talk about what happened,” he says, his voice slightly raspier than usual. Clarke definitely notices. 

“Oh, yeah?” She says, and bites her lip. Bellamy’s chest tightens and, like a fool, he lets down his guard. She notices the break in his concentration and uses it against him, surging upward and flipping them over. Bellamy coughs as she knocks the wind out of him, her hat falling off as she grins, triumphant. “Cause I’m pretty sure I know where I stand.” She jerks as another snowball hits the back of her head, and clambers off him, chasing after a lanky, scrambling Jasper. Bellamy sighs and drops his head against the ground. Okay, what the fuck does  _ that _ mean? 

Clarke’s heart pounds as she runs after Jasper, leaving Bellamy in the snow. She only set up the bet with Miller because she was curious if he would really follow through.  Then, she was curious about what he would look like on that model’s platform. And now that she has that information… 

Her hands sweat inside her fingerless gloves, despite the cold. When he was settled on top of her, she felt more at peace than she had in months. Every time he touches her the buzzing in her head relaxes, until all she can hear is his voice and her own, melding together into a melody that settles in her bones. He smooths his hands across her back or ruffles her hair and everything seems to make sense, even with the chaos of classes and her father’s prognosis. With Bellamy everything else shuts off, like he’s a bubble, separate from the rest of her world, that keeps her safe. She wants more, wants his touch to keep her brain silent, to keep her heart safe. She turns to watch him, laughing as he runs from Octavia and Jasper as they pelt him with snowballs, and makes a choice. She wants him, and fuck the consequences. 

Bellamy looks up at the sound of his name to find Clarke standing in the falling snow, hatless, snowflakes resting in her curls, cheeks pink, chest heaving. The sun is already setting in the early evening, the street lights casting an orange glow over everything. She’s smiling, her eyes directly on him. He can’t help but smile back. 

Octavia mutters something about dinner, and she and Jasper slink away. Bellamy barely notices, only picks up her hat on his way across the quad, hands it to her gently. “Hey,” she says again. 

“Hey,” he replies. His heart is beating so fast he’s afraid she might be able to hear it, even through the layers. He reaches out and pushes her hat back down on her head. She giggles a little when it comes down over her eyes, and pulls it back, pushing her hair out of her eyes. He cups her face with his hands before he pulls them away, and she catches one, tangling their fingers together. His breath catches in his chest as he looks down at her small pale fingers, intertwined with his. 

She nods back to the indent from where she knocked the wind out of him. “Sorry,” she whispers. She rocks up on her toes, pushing closer. She’s not sure if he’ll respond the way she wants, the way she hopes, but she believes in the chance that he might.

One of his hands comes back up to her face, wiping a snowflake off her cheek. He’s been hoping for a moment like this, something soft and slow and just for them, and he’s grateful for it, even with the odd circumstance. She bites her lip and he follows the movement. “No you’re not,” he whispers, angling down to meet her. 

Shaking her head, she curls her other hand into his jacket and closes the rest of the distance between them. “No, I’m not.” She leans into him as their lips meet, warm and perfect in the cold evening. 

This kiss is so much different than their first. Soft and slow and kind in the streetlight, bodies pressed up against each other, gentle and insistent. He’s relearning her with every press of lips and slip of tongue. Before they were a clash of wills, loud and chaotic, fire and electricity, like a thunderstorm in the middle of summer. Now they blend together like a melody, a give and take that glows like moonlight in a stream. She wraps her arms around his torso, clasping her hands behind his back, and he holds the back of her neck with one hand, the other wrapping around her. 

It’s timid, and unsure, young and reverent and new, but Clarke finds calm in it, and Bellamy possibility, for something open and honest. 

She pulls back when her nose starts to run, sniffs and laughs. “Sorry,” she says, wiping her nose on the back of her glove. 

He strokes her cheeks with his thumbs, smiles while he presses a kiss to her forehead. “It’s okay,” he laughs. She looks up at him and the light in her eyes is probably just a reflection of the street light, but to him it looks like it’s coming from within. He kisses her again, firm and short. “It’s more than okay.” 

She doesn’t want him to stop touching her, not even for a second. She leans up on her tiptoes and pulls him down for another lingering kiss, just because she can. Pulling away, she whispers against his lips. “Follow me.” She leads him past Alpha and Mecha, and towards Jaha hall, dinner completely gone from her mind. Bellamy’s not totally sure what’s happening until she’s pushing him against the wall of the elevator, all gentleness gone. 

He’s definitely a fan of this development. Their mouths are hot and hungry against each other, getting as close as they can with the winter layers between them. Finally, the elevator stops on Clarke’s floor and they part reluctantly, avoiding eye contact with the gaggle of freshmen waiting to get on. Giggling, she drags him down the hall before pulling him against her outside her room, kissing him thoroughly. She only pulls away to dig for her key in her bag, laughing as Bellamy wraps his arm around her from behind, kissing her cheek. “Hurry,” he whispers, sending a shiver down her spine. 

The door is finally unlocked and she turns in his arms and yanks him through. He kicks the door closed behind them, reaching up and untangling her scarf. She pulls off his hat and rakes her fingers through his hair, her nails catching on his scalp, he gasps into the kiss and she laughs against his mouth. Sliding her hands down, she pushes his jacket off his shoulders. Getting rid of her own coat, she jumps into his arms, and he catches her, but the weight shift sends him stumbling backwards, a bed taking out the back of his knees. “Wait,” he says, gasping, and Clarke pulls away. 

“What?” she asks, and sits back in his lap, her hands resting flat on his shoulders. Her face is plainly terrified, like she’s done something wrong. 

Bellamy has to laugh. “It’s okay,” he breathes, smoothing his hands up her back, and leaning in to kiss her again, slower this time, and soft. She pulls away when he starts laughing against her lips. 

“What??” She asks again, indignant this time. Her eyebrows edge up, her lips a deep and tempting pink. There’s a slight shock in his chest when it settles in that it’s because of him. 

“It’s just --” he laughs and looks around. Clarke does too, the first time they’ve paid attention to their surroundings since the quad. “This is Octavia’s bed.” 

Clarke throws her head back and laughs as she climbs off of him. “Yeah, sorry.” When she gets to her feet, she pulls off her sweatshirt, revealing a long-sleeve t-shirt. 

“Oh my god,” he says, “how many shirts are you wearing?” He stands again and steps toward her slowly, savoring the way her hair slips down her back as she looks up at him when he leans down. She pushes up on her toes to kiss him, but he turns his head, lays kisses across her cheek, wraps his lips around her ear. As his hands come up, he pushes his fingers underneath the t-shirt, huffs when he finds another layer of fabric underneath. 

Clarke, impatient, nearly knocks him in the face when she pulls it off, revealing a black camisole underneath. His intake of breath makes her smirk. “Better?” she asks. He answers by leaning down and kissing her soundly, his tongue licking into her, his arms tight and strong around her waist. She moans into his mouth, and it goes straight to his dick. She pulls back, gasping. “You are wearing entirely too many clothes.”    
  
He backs her up against her bed, which is at captain’s height, and maintains eye contact as he bends to wrap his arms around her thighs, lifting her suddenly. She lands with a yelp, and he gives her a fox’s grin. “ _ I’m _ wearing too many clothes?” he asks, and slides his hands underneath her last layer. She inhales as his hands meet soft, bare skin, cold against her sides. 

“It was cold,” she responds, trying to sound defensive, but instead it’s breathy, her voice catching, a need pulsing underneath. He pulls it off, and she leans in to kiss him, but he pulls back, entertained as she chases his lips. She opens her mouth, presumably to yell at him, but instead he pulls off his sweater, leaving him only in a tight t-shirt. She stops, mouth open and left slightly dry. 

“Love it when I leave you speechless, princess,” he says. 

“Oh my god, shut up.” Twisting her hand in the front of his shirt, she yanks him forward. Their kiss is once again all fire and heat, almost as if to prove who might win, if a kiss could be an argument. But that’s just what she needs from him; something that keeps her fighting. She pushes her hands up the back of his shirt, just needing more, and he pulls it off entirely. Her breath catches again, and they both stop as she trails her hands down his chest, reverent. She’d seen him completely naked mere hours before, but this is different. He’s close enough to feel the heat coming off his abdomen, to smell the Old Spice deodorant he’d used that morning, to feel his breath on her forehead, his lips grazing her hairline. He’s so close, and handsome, and soft and -- and hers.  

When his hands come up to close around hers, they’re shaking. “Are you --” she starts, but he cuts her off with a kiss, soft and swimming with words unspoken. She pushes back with equal fervor, and he holds her tight as the kiss deepens and heats again. 

There’s a moment of laughter as they pull back to step out of their winter boots and thick, soaking socks, but then he’s laying her back on the bed, climbing up over her. Her hands slide over the muscles defined in his arms, smoothing them down the sharp planes of his back. Gasping as Bellamy’s leg slips between hers, she digs her nails into his shoulders, and he moans, low and soft. It only adds to the rush of heat building between her legs, and while she appreciates Bellamy being careful, loving, a gentleman, even -- this is taking too long. 

She turns her head to break the kiss, and he ducks his, leaving open-mouthed kisses down her neck. She reaches behind her back and unclasps her bra herself, but  Bellamy barely notices as she pulls her arms out of the straps, too preoccupied with leaving a row of tiny bruises along her collarbone. But when she reaches between them to toss it aside, he stops, his breath stuck in his throat, and just stares. 

“Fuck, princess,” he breathes, and she wants him so badly it aches. She pulls herself up to kiss him, but his mouth is already on her chest, lips wrapping around one nipple, his left hand coming up to massage the other, and there’s a tension in his actions, like he’s holding back. She cups his face in her hands and pulls him up towards her, kissing him hard, licking up against the back of his teeth, moaning as his fingertips dig into the skin of her hip. 

She sucks his bottom lip into her mouth, and he chases her kiss as she pulls away, “Bellamy,” she sighs, her fingers twisted into his hair, her breath ragged and shallow. “Let go.” He does. What sounds almost like a growl escapes from deep in his chest, and he rolls hips against her, pushing her into the mattress. His focuses his attention back on her breasts until she’s keening, rolling her nipples between his long fingers, leaving hickeys across her chest. “You like leaving marks, huh?” she asks, but the sarcasm is undercut by the breathiness of her tone, the way she pushes into his touch. 

He pulls back up, kisses her soundly. “Guess you gotta be careful what you wish for,” he whispers. Her hips twitch and his smile is practically feral. She tips up her chin  for a kiss but he draws back, makes his way down her body slowly, trailing his fingers down her sides and across her stomach. He pauses when he reaches the waistband of her leggings, looks up at her, a question in his dark eyes. She nods, practically shaking with anticipation, and he curls his fingers in the elastic, pulling them down and off. 

Clarke hasn’t trusted anyone like this since Finn, but the hint of anxiety that comes with the memory is cleared away with a single word. “Beautiful,” Bellamy breathes, and when she looks at him, he seems awestruck, like she’s given him a gift. He surges back up to kiss her, and it’s like he can’t resist for another moment. His hand slides up the inside of her thigh until he’s inches from where she wants him -- his hesitation is a question, and she nods slightly in answer, pushes her hips towards his hand, desperate. 

He starts lightly, tracing his fingers over the lips of her cunt, fingertips barely brushing her clit, still kissing her. She moans with every dive of his tongue into her mouth, and she’s almost shaking when she whispers against his lips. “Please,” she says, dragging her nails across the back of his neck, her knuckles going white with her grip on his hair. “Bellamy,” she whimpers, “Please.” 

Finally, finally, his fingers drag up her slit and he’s rubbing circles on her clit, steady and strong. Every sound she makes causes his cock to twitch, straining against the zipper of his jeans. Her hand fumbles down for the buckle of his belt, but he stops her. “Time for that,” he chastises, “You first.” Her outlet of breath is less a sigh than a moan, but her hand stills and she melts back into the mattress. 

He dips his fingers down to trace her entrance, and the wetness he finds there sends a shock through his body and into his dick. He curses into her neck and she breathes in sharply, which turns into a squeak as he slips his fingers into her, one at first and a second following shortly after. Finding her g-spot isn’t a challenge, and he brings her closer to the edge as she brings her left hand down to her clit, moaning and shaking. 

He doesn’t want this over yet, so he drops between her legs, pushing her hand aside and shouldering her legs apart. He looks up for permission again, and there’s not a second of hesitation in her gasped “yes. God, yes.” 

“God is a little formal,” he says, a ridiculous grin on his face. His voice is even huskier than usual, and it vibrates up her spine. “I prefer Bellamy.” Before she can chastise him for his joke, he’s kissing up her thighs, his arms under her hips, fingers digging into her lower back. Her hands dive into his hair and he can’t get enough of the sounds she makes as he teases her. Before she can completely come down from the edge he’s brought her to, he seals his lips around her clit, sucking until she cries out. He works her up hard and fast, flicking her tongue over her clit again and again, fitting three fingers into her and massaging her g-spot. She crashes into her first orgasm with a sigh, and clenches down on his fingers in what is undoubtedly the hottest thing that has ever happened to him. 

When he pulls his hand out, his fingers are soaked, and there’s some measure of satisfaction on his face as he dips them into his mouth and licks them clean. Clarke watches, boneless on her back, and sighs. She reaches out for him and he lays down beside her, propping his head up on his elbow and draping his arm over her, his fingers tracing idle circles on her side. She leans up and kisses him, relishing the taste of herself in his mouth. “You are,” she sighs between  short kisses, “so fucking hot.” 

He laughs against her temple as she wraps herself around him, pressing her bare body against his naked chest. “You’re not so bad yourself,” he says. She pulls him in for a longer kiss, and they stay like that for a few minutes, laying on their sides and pressed against each other, mouths moving in tandem, lips swollen, hands exploring. Clarke pushes her leg between his and rolls her hips, grinning at his answering gasp. 

“Why,” she mumbles, “are you still wearing so many clothes?” He laughs, and as Clarke fumbles for his belt buckle again, he lets her, helping her get his jeans and boxers off and pushed toward the end of the bed. She flips them until she’s straddling him, and she picks herself up on her knees and tosses her head, combing her fingers through her hair and then tying it into a ponytail. Bellamy watches, mesmerized, just running his hands up and down her body. She leans back down over him, presses a kiss to his lips. “What?” she asks, smiling. 

He smooths his hands over his shoulder blades and down her back, cupping them around her ass. “Gorgeous,” he mumbles, “You, Clarke Griffin, are absolutely stunning.” She lays back down so the length of their bare bodies press against each other. He’s half-hard, and she tangles their legs together, and she presses her leg into his cock. 

“You’re ridiculous,” she says, between lazy kisses. They get lost in themselves again. As their kisses going from soft and wondering to harder and filled with heat, Clarke reaches between them and wraps her hand around Bellamy’s cock. His fingertips dig into her ass as she strokes him, and it’s his turn to stutter and gasp, moaning into her mouth. 

When he’s fully hard, she stops, and he catches her as she picks herself up and leans to the side. “No,” he gasps, “where are you going?” 

She laughs and returns for a quick kiss. “Just hang on a second.” She pulls out the top drawer of the dresser tucked under her bed and rummages for a second, pulling out a condom. She rips it open with her teeth, and Bellamy’s hands flex on her hips. Clarke smirks; she’ll have to explore that reaction in the future. She rolls it down over him and then picks herself up on her knees, taking his cock in her hand and guiding him into her. He’s big, and she pushes onto him slowly, letting herself adjust. When he’s all the way in they both gasp, and Bellamy refuses to break her gaze and she rolls her hips and rides him slowly, wanting the moment to last forever. 

He sits up so he can kiss her, and she gasps at the new angle. Her arms wrap around his neck, hands diving back into his curls, tugging on his hair, and his kiss reaches a new intensity as he bites lightly on her lower lip. Her hips stutter in their rhythm and he reaches under her ass and flips them over before guiding himself back into her. He’s hot and hard and perfect, and she starts to moan with each thrust. He can feel himself getting closer, and he props himself up on one elbow, reaching down and starting to rub tight circles on her clit. She arcs into the touch and the noise she makes it hard for Bellamy to keep his composure. She notices his arm start to shake and knocks his hand away, taking over her clit for herself and letting him brace himself with both elbows. 

Her orgasm starts to build, and she can tell Bellamy is getting closer because his hips start to stutter, but she needs just a little more time. “Bellamy, I can’t --” she gasps. He rocks up the pace, and bites down on her neck, just under her ear. 

He’s barely holding it together, and his breathing is ragged. “Come on, Princess,” he sighs, and then shifts his weight in a way that pushes at just the right angle. She lets out a desperate sound. “Come for me.” His voice tips her over the edge, her cunt fluttering around him, and he follows her, his vision blurring out at the edges with the intensity of his orgasm. He slumps to the side, pulling out of her and soothing her through the aftershocks. 

When her breathing has returned to normal, he ties off the condom and drops it in the trash can underneath her bed before dropping down onto his back. There isn’t much room in the twin bed, and Clarke rolls over and tucks herself against him, lifting his arm and snuggling under it. “Holy shit,” he lets out. 

She chuckles into his neck. “Yeah,” she agrees. They stay like that, just breathing together, Clarke tracing the veins in Bellamy’s forearms, Bellamy trailing his fingers up and down her arm. His brain is finally quiet, after weeks of parts of his mind arguing over if he should tell Clarke how he feels or not. He’s almost grateful he never had to make the decision.There’s a sense of peace that he hasn’t had in a long time. But then she starts to giggle uncontrollably. 

“What?” he asks, suddenly full of very real anxiety. He thought they were on the same page about this, but if Clarke sees it as a one-time thing, he might actually die. 

Clarke props herself up on her elbow so she can see his face. “We just had sex,” she says, and laughs again. His stomach drops all the way to his toes. It’s official, he’s going to die.  

“Yeah,” he replies.  She could have stopped him if she wanted, he made sure of that. His heart is beating so fast he’s afraid she might hear it. “Is that… is that a bad thing?” 

“No,” she says, immediately, and he relaxes, “No, just -- surreal?” 

“Surreal?” he asks, his tone almost offended. 

“Not in a bad way!” she starts to babble, and her nerves reveal just what she means. She’s happy, finally, and barely knows what to do about it. Bellamy just watches, finding it adorable. “I just --” she buries a laugh in his shoulder. “It’s wild!” she finally says, still smiling. It’s big and bright and so beautiful he wants to see it every day for the rest of his life. It fades, just slightly, still glowing, but softer. “I never thought I’d get to have this, I guess.” 

That gets him in the gut. “What do you mean?” 

“The last time --” she shifts away from him, onto her stomach, and Bellamy rolls onto his side to look at her. In every other situation where he’s seen her vulnerable, he’s had to resist touching her, keep himself from holding her the way he wants to -- the way she needs him to. But now, he stretches out a hand and smooths it down her back, fiddling with her hair as she talks. “The last time I -- I trusted someone like this, it didn’t end well.” The one sentence tells him volumes. Now he knows -- this isn’t a one-time thing, at all. She’s taking this seriously, and trusting him to not betray her, to be there when she needs him, to understand. 

“How did it end?” he asks, and immediately follows up with “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to talk about it.” 

“No,” she says, “No, you should know.” She laughs, but there’s little humor in it. “You already know almost everything else.” Bellamy puts a mental note on ‘almost’ and decides to ask about it later. “I’ve never told you how Raven and I know each other, have I?” It’s a question, but she says it like a fact. Bellamy doesn’t totally understand how this is relevant, but he confirms that she hasn’t. “Freshman year I met this guy, Finn. He seemed --” she coughs out a laugh. “ _ Seemed _ \-- like a great guy. Sweet, cute, funny. Had a personality beyond academics or whatever sport he played. He was one of the first people I ever felt like I actually connected with.” Clearly, this relationship is over and Clarke hates the dude, but Bellamy is still feeling a little jealous. “We dated for almost six months, which is like, forever, when you’re 18. I thought I loved him.” 

“Damn,” Bellamy whispers. He has no idea where this story is going but anything that ends with Clarke hurt has to be bad. She has a pretty thick skin. 

“And maybe I did, I don’t know,” she says, “but I know it sure as hell hurt when I found out about his girlfriend.” 

Bellamy does his best not to react, but he still breathes in sharply. “Shit.” 

“It was Raven,”  she says, like it’s nothing. 

“Oh,  _ shit _ ,” he repeats. 

She laughs, and there’s a real smile behind it this time. “Yeah. Apparently she found out about me first. She found me in the dining hall one day and asked me if I was dating Finn,” She flips onto her back and stares up at the ceiling. “And I said yes, and she just sat down and said ‘me too, what are we gonna do about it?’” 

“Sounds like Raven,” Bellamy says, and Clarke laughs. 

“Yeah,” she says. 

“So what did you do?” he asks. Raven and Clarke are now the best of friends, so there had to be some severe bonding that went on between them meeting and now. 

“Well, Raven and Finn lived together, so she put Nair in his shampoo and then we sent out an email to the school’s ListServ announcing what he’d done.” 

He busts out a laugh. “Now that really sounds like Raven.” She rolls back into Bellamy’s arms, and they’re both on their sides, facing each other, Clarke’s face pressed against his chest. 

“Sorry,” she mumbles against his chest, “I don’t really know why I told you that.” 

“No, it’s okay,” he says, skimming his fingertips up and down her spine, “I’m glad you did.” And he is -- he knows now, what she needs from him. Honesty, transparency, support. She just wants someone to be there for her, when she needs them, when there’s no one else she can turn to. 

“Will you stay for a while?” she asks, quiet, and almost afraid. She wants to tell him why, that he makes everything in her head stop, that he gets rid of all the buzzing and chatter that goes on in her mind. He’s a safe place in her chaotic world, and she can’t let him go, not now. 

He leans down to pull the blankets up over them. “Of course,” he says, not needing a reason. She appreciates him even more for that. For not asking, for staying anyway. Clarke settles in against his shoulder, tucking her arms against his chest, and he just holds her, savoring her breath as it brushes against his collarbones. He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but he’s sated and exhausted, and Clarke is loose and relaxed in his arms, and this is everything he’s wanted for a very long time. 

It occurs to Clarke that she forgot to text Octavia right around the time the door slams open. They’d discussed how they were going to handle sexual guests at the beginning of the semester, but at that point, Bellamy hadn’t really been a contender, and there wasn’t really protocol in place for a situation like accidentally falling a little bit in love with your roommate’s brother, anyway. But it’s Octavia’s guttural yell that jerks Clarke and Bellamy from their very pleasant slumber, and the yell that reminds Clarke of the forgotten text message. 

The yell is wordless, but Bellamy responds in an appropriate manner. As Clarke blinks awake, he looks at his sister, looming above them, still in her coat, keys in hand. “Oh,” he says, “shit.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you better comment all those feels i know ur feelin


	9. the show goes on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He stoops down to pick up his t-shirt, but before he can get it on, she grabs him by one of his belt loops and pulls him back towards her on the bed. She bounces on the edge and he steps to stand between her legs. “What?” he asks. Her hair has long since fallen out of its ponytail, and he pushes it out of her eyes, cupping her face in his hands. 
> 
> “She said she’d be gone 20 minutes,” she says, and smiles, biting her lip. Her hands slide up his bare chest to his shoulders, every second of skin against skin better than the last. He makes everything just -- quiet. Like touching him presses a mute button on the rest of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO i am returned  
> it's finals week and I'm dying but at least these two finally got their shit together   
> well  
> in my fic at least   
> remains to be seen, on the actual show.

Clarke’s first sentence is “Fuck!” Her second is “I’m sorry!”, and these continue in an alternating fashion. Octavia, to her credit, is mostly laughing as her roommate and her brother scramble for clothes before realizing they’re mostly on the floor. Clarke settles for pulling the comforter up over her chest, and Bellamy just puts his arms in his lap and hopes the blanket doesn’t slip. Clarke is still profusely apologizing when Octavia holds up her hand. 

“You guys,” she says, although Clarke is the only one talking. “It’s fine. She drops her keys on her desk, takes off her coat, and picks up her laptop. “I’m going to the lounge for twenty minutes and when I get back --” she points at Clarke. “ _ You _ will be clothed,” and then at her brother. “And  _ you _ will be gone.” She pulls off her boots, slips her feet into her slippers, grabs a sweatshirt, and leaves the room. 

There’s a moment of sticky silence before Bellamy and Clarke look at each other and just burst out laughing. Bellamy scrambles out of bed and they talk as they dress. “So…” Bellamy says, “She’s just… cool with it?” He pulls his boxers up over his ass before hopping into his jeans. 

Clarke reaches up to her bedpost, where all of her sweatshirts hang, and pulls one on. Bellamy is a little sad to watch her rather magnificent breasts disappear underneath the baggy garment. “We talked about it,” she says, and leans over to rummage in her drawer for underwear. She pulls out a pair of blue plaid boxers and yanks them on under the covers. Her shyness, even after they’ve seen each other naked, is a little adorable. 

He stoops down to pick up his t-shirt, but before he can get it on, she grabs him by one of his belt loops and pulls him back towards her on the bed. She bounces on the edge and he steps to stand between her legs. “What?” he asks. Her hair has long since fallen out of its ponytail, and he pushes it out of her eyes, cupping her face in his hands. 

“She said she’d be gone 20 minutes,” she says, and smiles, biting her lip. Her hands slide up his bare chest to his shoulders, every second of skin against skin better than the last. He makes everything just -- quiet. Like touching him presses a mute button on the rest of the world. 

“Oh yeah?” he asks, smiling in return. She nods, and he leans down and kisses her softly. Her eyes stay closed as he draws away, and he wants to save this moment forever. “I should go,” he says. 

She shakes her head. “Mmmm,” she says, and pulls him down again. Her arms wrap around his middle, clasping behind his back, one of his hands sliding around to wrap around the back of her neck. Their kiss is slow and gentle, everything the evening hadn’t been. Her lips are chapped and rough, and Bellamy takes a little pride in the fact that it’s because of him. He doesn’t want to leave, but sleeping over in his little sister’s room after just fucking her roommate doesn’t sound like the most socially conscious idea. 

“Clarke Griffin,” he says softly as he pulls away, “Will you go on a date with me tomorrow night?” It’s long past time he ask, and even if it’s just cheap pizza and Planet Earth on his couch, it’ll be time spent with his favorite person. 

“Yes, Bellamy Blake,” she says, smiling, big and goofy. He feels light, just looking at her. “I will.” 

“Awesome,” he says, and leans down to kiss her again. 

Finally, Bellamy does finish putting on his clothes, and reaches for the door handle at the same time Octavia pulls it open. “Bell,” she says, “I gave you twenty fucking minutes.” Bellamy  just smiles and shrugs before casting one glance back at Clarke and leaving the room. 

“So,” Octavia says, dropping on to her bed. “That happened.” 

Clarke rubs her eyes and yawns. “What time is it?” 

“Almost 11,” Octavia says. “Don’t change the subject.”

“Where were you?” Clarke persists. She will, of course, eventually talk about this, but right now the night feels like a secret, just for her. Well, her and Bellamy. She tries not to get distracted by the memory of his lips on hers, his mouth on her breasts and her cunt, what he felt like inside of her, but it’s a little difficult. The sex was fucking great. 

“I went to Monroe’s place after dinner to hang out with her roommates. What did I say about changing the subject?” That’s Octavia, refusing to let Clarke get away with anything. “Last time we talked about this you barely knew you liked him. What changed?” 

Clarke giggles at the memory of Bellamy beet-red and paralyzed on the model stand in her class, her wallet 40 bucks lighter after her bet with Miller. “It’s kind of a weird story.” She knows at some point she has to tell Bellamy that she set him up. She’s hoping he finds it funny. 

“I grew up with my brother, I live with you, you think I’m not used to weird?” Octavia says. 

Clarke shrugs. She has a point. “Okay,”she says, crossing her legs up on her bed. “I bet Miller he couldn’t get Bellamy naked in public, and then gave him the idea to bet Bellamy over a hockey game I knew he’d lose so he’d be the model for my Life Drawing class and hopefully something would happen and then it turns out I made the first move instead of him and then we came back here, and uh --” she clears her throat. “Well. You know how that ended.” 

Octavia’s jaw drops. “Are you shitting me?” she asks. 

Clarke shakes her head, tucks one side of her hair behind her ear. “Nope.” Saying it all out loud, it does sound a little nuts, but Clarke is feeling more than a little self-satisfied and for the most part, doesn't really care. It worked. That’s what she cares about. 

“Clarke,” Octavia says, “That is the most convoluted fucking thing I’ve ever head.”  

Clarke nods. “Pretty much.” 

Octavia holds up her hands in an attitude of surrender. “Whatever dude, it worked for you.” She looks at her friend, sitting on her bed with a small smile, finally looking relaxed and maybe even happy for the first time all year. “Seriously though Clarke,” she continues, “I am happy for you guys. I knew you’d be good for each other.” 

“I guess you just knew before we did,” Clarke says. She’s hugging one of her pillows, and Octavia can tell that all she can think about is Bellamy -- she’s barely paying attention to the conversation at all. 

“So who am I allowed to tell about this new…” Octavia waves her hand indistinctly. “... development.” Panic immediately appears in Clarke’s eyes, and realization dawns on Octavia’s face. “Oh,” she sighs, “That’s definitely not something you’ve talked about. Got it, okay.” 

“He won’t tell anyone, will he?” she asks. She doesn’t know if she’s ready for that, for everyone to know how she feels about him, how he feels about her. She wants it to be just for them, just for a little while. 

“Do you want him to?” Octavia asks, careful. 

Clarke shakes her head, but just a little bit. “No,” she says after a while, “Not yet, at least. I want it to be just us,” she says. She curls in on herself, pulling her knees up to her chin. “Just for a little bit.”

Octavia shrugs. “Then he won’t.” 

“But I didn’t tell him that,” Clarke says, quiet, worried. 

Octavia rolls her eyes and pushes herself back on her bed. “Do you trust Bellamy?” she knows the answer, but she needs Clarke to say it out loud. 

“Of course I do,” Clarke answers without hesitation. 

Octavia leans forward, putting her elbows on her knees. “Then trust him. I get that with everything going on and with your old relationship shit you’re worried but --” she sighs. “This is my brother, okay? Know that I know what I’m talking about. You guys are gonna be okay.” 

Clarke nods. “That honestly feels good to hear.” She lets the smallest of grins through. “Thanks.” 

Octavia smiles back. “Of course, babe.” She lets the smile drop and speaks with a sarcastic, deadpan expression. “But Bellamy has a house so please never fuck him in this room again.” 

The tension in Clarke’s throat unravels, and she lets out a laugh. “Okay,” she says. “I deserved that.” 

 

 

Luckily, Bellamy comes home to an empty house. He’s not sure if Clarke is okay with talking about what happened between them, so he’s not going to, but if Miller or Murphy was sitting in the living room when he got home, he isn’t sure he would have been able to contain the news.  

Yanking off his jacket, Bellamy kicks off his boots and flops back down on his bed. He can’t wipe the smile off his face. The memory of Clarke surrounds him, until he swears he can smell her, lingering in the air of his room. He searches for any discernible, complete thought, but the only thing he can come up with is ‘that  _ happened _ ’ and then an immeasurable glow of happiness. He rubs his hands down his face, feeling so unbelievably lucky he can barely breathe.  The pessimist in him tells him it won’t last, but he really, really hopes it will. As long as he’s still breathing, he’ll have hope. 

He spends the next day doing homework and laundry, anything to keep himself from worrying about his date with Clarke. He has a  _ date _ . With  _ Clarke _ . That in and of itself is a little wild. He also needs to make sure he doesn’t tell his roommates, either. The unusual overwhelming feeling of cheerfulness isn’t really helping his case, because Murphy keeps shooting glances at him from the kitchen table. He’s spread out with his pre-law books, looking more than a little wary whenever Bellamy comes through with his loads of laundry. 

Bellamy is studying in the living room, trying to finish an essay, when a pen nails him in the side of the head. “Dude!” he yells indignantly, jerking his head up to look at Murphy. “What the fuck?” 

Murphy doesn’t look up, just rolls a highlighter cap between his teeth. “Stop  _ fucking _ humming, Blake,” he says, in his usual deadpan voice. 

“I wasn’t --” 

“If I have to hear  _ Stereo _ one more time from your tone-deaf ass I’ll whip a textbook at you next.” Bellamy shuts up. He’s mostly surprised that Murphy recognizes the song that’s been stuck in his head all day, but also knows that if he’s humming it out loud he’s way past usually distracted. Murphy pauses, like he’s realized something, and turns towards him, propping his elbow on the table and spitting the highlighter cap into the air before catching it in his hand. “Why  _ are  _ you humming, anyway?”

Murphy being interested in his life is its own brand of terrifying. “Can we go back to you threatening me?” Bellamy asks, “I think I’m more comfortable with that.” 

Murphy squints at him through his rectangular glasses. There’s a lot about Murphy that Bellamy doesn’t totally understand. The law degree is one of them, for a dude that spent most of his time in juvenile hall. But another is his occasional bouts of empathy, when he can read a person like a book and either help or eviscerate them. Bellamy has been on the receiving end of both. “Holy shit,” Murphy says, without inflection, “You got laid.” 

Bellamy doesn’t react. In the moments when Murphy decides to turn his weirdly effective interrogation skills on any of his friends, it’s better to reveal as little as possible. “The only question,” Murphy continues, tapping his highlighter on his lower lip, “is who.” He flips the marker between his fingers. Bellamy keeps his face as neutral as possible. “It wasn’t Griffin,” Murphy muses, “So who was it?” At Clarke’s name, the image of her smiling in the snow flashes in his mind, and the corner of his mouth twitches upward. For the first time, Murphy has emotion in his voice. When Bellamy looks, Murphy’s eyebrows are up near his hairline. “So it was Griffin,” Murphy says. A cheshire smile settles on his face, and he nods slowly. “Interesting.”

“What is?” Miller asks, walking through the front door. He’s still wearing his stupid visor from the pizza place, but he’s carrying a delicious-smelling box in his left hand.

Bellamy’s heart jumps into his throat as he watches Murphy very clearly consider his fate. Clearly, Murphy cares more about pizza than dragging more drama into his life, and his face wipes clean, like a television being turned off. “Nothing,” he says. “What kind of pizza is that?” 

If Bellamy had to pick a phrase to encapsulate Nathan Miller’s general attitude toward his roommates it would be ‘done with their shit.’ He rolls his eyes and chooses not to ask, instead sliding the box onto the counter. “Hawaiian.” he says. Bellamy clicks his tongue behind his teeth and turns back to his books, disappointed. Murphy, on the other hand, gets up from the table. Miller flicks Bellamy’s head as he passes by on his way to his room. “It’s half sausage and black olive,” he says. “Just for you.” 

Bellamy grins and offers up his hand for a high-five. “You’re the best, dude.” 

Miller slaps it and goes into his room. “You both owe me five bucks,” he says as he shuts the door. Bellamy just laughs and shakes his head. He gets up and heads for the kitchen, but when he steps close to speak to Murphy, he’s stopped by a hand on his chest. “No need to threateningly loom, sasquatch,” Murphy says, “I won’t tell anyone.” He slips past Bellamy and sits back down with his books. 

Bellamy sits down across the table, not done with him. “It’s just --” he says, “Clarke and I, we haven’t talked about. --” 

Murphy rolls his head up and squints at him again. “I’m not gonna spill your stupid secret, Blake,” he says. “Do what you want with Griffin.” He leans forward. “I don’t care.” 

Bellamy’s not totally sure he believes his roommate, but when Murphy is done talking, he’s done talking. If he tries to say anything else he’ll be lucky if Murphy even looks up at him. “Alright,” he says, and goes back to the couch. He stops focusing on his homework about two hours before he’s set to go pick up Clarke, when he realizes he has absolutely no plan. Dinner and a movie feels too easy, too boring. He’s gotta do something better than that, something she’ll remember. He’s doing some idle googling when he remembers her talking about something she’d seen in the paper, and breaks out into a grin. Of course. 

 

 

Clarke isn’t the type of girl that spends all day in front of a mirror. She cares about how she looks, but not to an extreme degree. She owns a couple dresses, a pair of heels or two, but she doesn’t usually wear makeup and she normally has to be harassed by her mother into anything fancier than a nice pair of jeans. So when Bellamy texts her to dress warmly, she’s immediately relieved. She puts on her nicest jeans and a grey and white sweater that used to be her mom’s before starting to fuss with her hair. 

She spends half an hour putting it up and taking it back down again before Octavia orders her to sit on the floor in front of her bed and stop fidgeting. She puts Clarke’s hair in two perfect french braids that end in fishtails, and then offers to do her makeup as well. Clarke is certain Octavia is going to put her in a smoky eye with eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man, but surprisingly, Octavia keeps it soft, with a gentle contour and a shimmering highlight. “Oh,” Clarke says softly when she looks in the mirror. “Wow.” 

Octavia comes up behind her with that Blake-trademark shit-eating grin. “He’s gonna have a heart attack,” she says.

“Well, I hope not,”Clarke says, breathing out heavily as she fiddles with the hem of her sweater. “I’d really hate for that to be the ending to our first and only date.” 

“Hey,” Octavia says, leaning her chin on Clarke’s shoulder. “You look good.” There’s a slight pause. “And remember,” she continues, “It’s just Bellamy.” 

Clarke sighs again. It’s just Bellamy. Her heart melts at the thought of him. Her favorite person -- just a big history dork with a great ass and a little bit of a savior complex. She smiles a little. Just Bellamy. She heaves a sigh. “Yeah,” she says, “okay.” She wastes twenty minutes on her phone, trying not to let herself get into worst-case scenario territory. 

When her phone buzzes, she audibly yelps. Octavia whips her head up from her TV show to glance at Clarke. “Would you calm down?” she sighs, with a hand on her chest. “You scared the shit out of me.” 

Clarke looks up, panicked. “He’s here,” she says, her voice tight. She shouldn’t be nervous, and she knows that, but she definitely still is. She has a standing relationship with Bellamy, a dynamic that works, that she understands. He knows how he treats his friends, but not the girls he takes out on dates. But she does know there’s been a lot of them, and as much as she likes him, she doesn’t know how she feels about being one of them. Bellamy has this image on campus and among his friends, and part of her anxiety is what it might mean. She’s heard the stories about how many broken hearts Bellamy has left behind, and she hopes to God she’s not one of them. 

“What are you waiting for?” Octavia asks, “Go!” Clarke stutters back into motion and grabs her coat and a scarf before Octavia hustles her out the door. “Have fun! And Clarke --” she puts a hand on her friend’s arm. “-- he really likes you. Just -- just remember that.”  That does a lot to unravel the knot in Clarke’s chest. 

“Yeah,” she replies, soft. She smiles, regaining a little bit of confidence. “I will.” 

Octavia smiles back, but then becomes visibly uncomfortable with the emotional moment and shoves Clarke out the door. “Now go!” she shouts down the hall. Clarke laughs, and does as she’s told. 

 

 

Bellamy stands outside Jaha hall, leaning against Miller’s old pickup and hoping his heart isn’t going to beat directly out of his chest. Trying to convince his friend to let him borrow it without stating the purpose as to why was challenging enough, and so was cleaning out and packing the bed. He just really wants Clarke to like it. 

She comes out the door and down the steps into the clear night, her hair glowing in the moonlight, her face open and hopeful as she looks for him. When she finds him, her eyes light up, and the world seems to stop, if only for a moment. Her smile is almost as bright as the streetlights, and she pulls her coat tighter around herself as she walks toward him. She’s radiant, her face soft, wearing a slouchy grey beanie and her dark green duster coat. She’s wearing the Uggs he likes to poke fun at, and she stands on her toes to kiss him hello. 

“Hey,” she whispers when she pulls back, nose scrunched up with a smile. 

His response is less a thought than a gut reaction. “Beautiful,” he whispers back. She blushes and hides her face in his shoulder. “Come on,” he says, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. He smiles to himself. “We got somewhere to be.”

He leads her to the passenger side and opens the door. “Why do you have Miller’s pickup?” Clarke asks, her eyebrows drawn together. 

Bellamy grins and takes her face in his hands, smoothing his fingertips over the adorable wrinkle in her forehead. “You’ll see,” he says, and kisses her gently. “I hope you like it,” he whispers against her lips when he pulls away. 

She smiles into another soft kiss. “As long as I’m with you.” Bellamy helps her into the truck before jogging around to the other side and sliding in. 

Clarke is pulling off her coat when he gets in, and he smirks, tugging on her sweater sleeve. “Nice threads,” he says. 

She pushes at his shoulder. “You said dress warm!” she protests. He just laughs a little, slides his hand up her arm to brush a lock of hair away from her eyes and tuck it behind her ear. Her breath catches as his rough fingertips brush over her temple, and suddenly, they’re caught in each other’s eyes. He wants to know everything he can, learn all her stories, her hurts and worries, and soothe them away. He wants her and everything that comes with it. His heart pounds with the hope she wants him, too. 

Clarke’s breath tingles in her lungs as Bellamy looks at her. What she’d taken as anxiety for most of the day was turning into wild excitement and anticipation, and she couldn’t help but remember his dark eyes the night before, the way they’d found her core as they moved together. That same longing look is back, and she just wants to be close to him again, to let their hearts beat in time. Her breath stutters as she inhales, and that seems to draw Bellamy out of the moment. His hand drops. “You ready?” he asks. She bites on a smile and nods as he starts the car. 

Bellamy’s hands are nervous and twitchy on the wheel as he heads out of town. The night is cold, but clear and mostly still, so the weather is, at least, cooperating. He really, really hopes she doesn’t think this is cheesy or stupid. He’s going off something she’d said while hanging upside down on his couch a few weeks ago, face red as all her blood rushed to her head, flipping through Tinder. 

“Some girl just asked me what my ideal first date would be,” she’d said, her voice a mixture of confusion and a hint of surprise. He had been sitting in an armchair, opening and closing a highlighter with his right hand as he’d read material for the next morning’s class.  He’d had to ignore the flicker of pain in the left side of his chest to answer. 

“Is that weird?” he’d asked, fighting to maintain nonchalance, barely even looking up. 

Clarke thought for a second before replying. “No,” she said finally, patient, “I guess I’ve just never thought about it before.” She tapped her phone on her lip, pondering, before getting an idea and beginning to type. 

“So?” he’d asked once she’d pressed send. 

“Something in the middle of nowhere,” she’d said. At his answering shocked expression, she’d said; “I’m a sucker for stargazing.” 

So that’s where they were going. Bellamy had dug his old air mattress out from under his bed, pumped it up, covered it in sheets and his extra duvet, packed a picnic dinner, figured out how to get fairy lights to work in the back of a truck, packed the rest of the space in the bed with pillows, and laid it all down under Miller’s bed cover. Stargazing. In February. He winces as he finally turned down the dirt road he’d scoped on google maps. God, he’s an idiot. 

Clarke had been suspicious of his intentions once they’d left the town limits, but as Bellamy passes the last farmhouse and headed down to a deserted dead end, she lights up. “Oh my god,” she says, “You remembered!” 

He visibly relaxes, and she has to stifle a laugh. “Of course,” he sighs, “It’s why I told you to wear a sweater.” Clarke turns to look at him as he starts to slow down, and the air feels electrically charged. His sharp bone structure is highlighted by the blue and green light from the dash, glinting off the swoop of his curls. He’s flexing his fingers around the steering wheel as they stop, and she can see his left leg bouncing up and down. He’s just as nervous as she is. Putting the truck in park, he turns off the engine and takes the keys out of the ignition. She goes to get out as he opens his door, but he stops her. “Uh, stay here,” he says. And then, as an afterthought. “And close your eyes.” She raises her eyebrows at him. “Please?” he finishes. 

She rolls her eyes and closes them, pushing her hands underneath her thighs as the burst of cold air from Bellamy’s open door settles into the cab. It slams shut behind him, and she can hear a good amount of swearing for the next few moments, the cab occasionally bouncing up and down. Finally, her door opens, and she opens her eyes. Bellamy’s hair is a little messier, his chest rising and falling a little faster, but his eyes are shining, and he looks so damn proud of himself, she has to smile in return. “Okay,” he says, and holds out a hand. “It’s ready.” He helps her down out of the cab and leads her around to the back. She stops, her eyes wide, and then, the softest smile he’s ever seen. He puts a hand on her waist. “You like it?” he whispers. 

She turns and pulls him into a fierce kiss. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he holds her close, the action saying much more than words ever could. Finally, they pull apart. “It’s beautiful,” she says quietly. She looks away to take in the scene again, and he wraps his arms around her waist and leans his chin on her shoulder. “It’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.” His heart hurts a little, at that. It wasn’t hard, to listen to her, to think about what she wanted, what she might need from him. The fact that he’s the first to consider her first plants a funny feeling in his chest. Anger, on her behalf, but also a kind of gratuity, that he gets to show her what she deserves. She gives him an enormous smile. “Can we get in?” she asks. 

“Yeah,” he laughs. He drops the tailgate and hops up before giving her a hand. They settle in on their backs, Clarke’s head resting on Bellamy’s chest, eyes cast heavenward. He’d brought at least four blankets, in preparation for the weather, and Clarke has most of them, bundled up like a kid in winter. Bellamy smiles at the image of her as a little girl, so wrapped up she could hardly move, bounding through the snow. She asks if he knows any of the constellations, and he nearly laughs out loud. “Clarke,” he says, “I’m a classics major.”

“Fine,” she replies, leaning up for a short kiss, “then tell me about them.” He can’t help but grin before he raises his arm, and begins. 

Hours pass, Bellamy telling the old stories his mother told him, sharing the memories he has of Aurora and Octavia surrounding them. Clarke jumps in occasionally with her own stories, of Jake and Abby, of Jasper and Monty in high school and Raven in college. And sometimes they just sit, warm and comfortable in the other’s presence, happy to bask in the moonlight and just breathe together. It’s not much different than any other time they hang out, and Clarke thinks about how Octavia was right. It’s just Bellamy. Sweet, funny, reckless, brave, handsome Bellamy, her favorite person in the world. 

Bellamy’s feeling like he might actually be good at planning dates and a little like he won the girlfriend lottery when Clarke stutters over a name he’s never heard before and then goes stiff in his arms. She tries to finish the story for a few moments between finally giving up and burying her face in his chest, mumbling apologies and trying not to cry. 

“Clarke?” he asks, stroking her back as best he can through her thick coat. “What happened? What’s wrong?” 

She pulls back and swipes her hands under her eyes. “I’m fine,” she says. “It’s okay, I’m fine.” She sits up and turns away. 

“Clarke,” he says, “Who’s Wells?” 

She tenses, and for an instant he thinks he’s said the wrong thing, that he’s ruined the entire night. “I’m not --”  she sighs and sits up. “I’m getting cold,” she says, and she won’t look at him. “Can we go back?” 

He sits up after her and puts a hand on her shoulder. “Princess,” he says, soft, “Talk to me.”

She turns to look at him, and her blue eyes are misty and distant, sad in a way he’s never seen them before. “Not yet,” she says, “Please, Bell, I will just -- just not yet.” 

He reaches up, the rough pad of his fingertips brushing across the side of her face. For a moment, she leans into his touch, the corners of her mouth twitching upward in a sad smile. “Okay,” he says. “Alright.”  He helps her out of the bed of the truck, and she sits in the cab while he refastens the cover. She fidgets with her bracelets, the ends of her braids, while she waits. 

Wells died when they were teenagers, halfway through high school, hopeful, naive, made invincible by youth. It started with a stupid car accident on the street outside the school. Clarke had been home sick, nothing new, but Wells had been driving himself, rather than carpooling with her. It was dark, 6:30 in the morning, and he’d drifted into the other lane, half asleep, and run head on into Maya Vie.  It started with a headache, and then a concussion, and then Thelonious was pulling life support, and Clarke lost the only person she really, truly trusted. And it had been her own fault. If she’d only gotten out of bed and driven him to school, just like every other morning, he would be alive. Here, at Ark U with her, staying up too late and spending too much on junk food and talking her down from every ridiculous idea like he always had. 

But instead he’s gone, and she is alone. And it was her fault. She couldn’t let him see that side of her, hear that story. Not yet. But she doesn’t want this night to end, not yet. If she lets go of Bellamy, her silence, her safety, she’ll drown in the noise of grief and anxiety that always comes with the memory of Wells. 

Bellamy climbs back into the truck, but his hand stops before he turns the key in the ignition. “Do you want to go home?” he asks, “Or --” She doesn’t want to be alone right now, so she shakes her head. 

“Can we --” she licks her lips, swallows, suddenly nervous again. “Can we just watch a movie?” 

He smiles at her, gently. “You want cinnamon cocoa?” he asks. She smiles back and nods again. He leans across the seat and kisses her, soft and slow. “We can do that.” She kisses him again, a little longer this time. When they pull apart, his left hand is tangled in her hair, the other still resting on the wheel. “Whatever the hell you want, princess,” he whispers. She giggles against his lips, and it’s another few minutes before he’s pulling away down the dirt road. 

It’s late by the time they get back to Bellamy’s house. Clarke drops her coat on his couch and hops up on his kitchen counter in her usual spot on the island. Cinnamon cocoa became a tradition as the fall had turned into winter and Clarke had spent more and more time at Bellamy’s. It had been the one similarity in their desperately different childhoods. 

He’d spent months resisting the urge to kiss her when she was perched on his counter like that, and now he gets to. He plants his hands on either side of her hips and leans in, bumping his nose against hers. “Hey,” he whispers, before pressing his lips to hers. She kisses him deeply, pulling him against her by wrapping her legs around the back of his thighs. He stumbles against her and laughs. “You wanna start this now?” he chuckles, mostly joking, and sighs when she puts her hands on his shoulder and pushes him away. 

“You gotta make me cocoa first,” she says, and he leans in for one more kiss before turning to the cabinet. Clarke is mostly quiet while he heats the milk and breaks up the baker’s chocolate, kicking her heels against the cabinets. Bellamy looks up occasionally from under his bangs, but her fingers are flexing around the curve of the counter edge, so he just waits until she’s ready to say what she needs to. 

“So you asked me about Wells earlier,” she blurts finally, when his back is turned. He tenses for a just a moment, and she watches him force the tension out of his shoulders. He doesn’t want to make this any harder for her than it already is. 

“I did,” he says, before turning and measuring out the cinnamon into the pot. 

There’s another long pause before she speaks again. Bellamy wants to hold her. “Wells --” she clears her throat. “Wells and I grew up together.” She stops and starts as she continues the story, but Bellamy just listens, and she’s grateful he’s not offering empty pity. But he’s gone through something like this, she remembers, and he knows what to say. Or what not to. “Our parents were best friends in college, and I guess we were just best friends by default, after that. Not everyone gets to have someone they don’t remember meeting, someone who knows you inside and out, but I did. He was the closest thing I had to a brother.” That strikes a chord with Bellamy, and he pauses to take her hand for a moment, stroking his thumb over the back of her hand. He only lets go when the milk starts to boil and he needs to pull away to stir. “We had our whole lives planned out,” she says, and her voice starts to thicken. “Ark for college, and then California for grad school, and then we’d have the whole world after that.” 

Bellamy pours the cocoa into mugs, and gets a can of whipped cream from the fridge. He offers it, and she nods with a sad smile. He sprays a liberal amount on both drinks. “Right after we sent in our college apps he got in a car accident.” She swallows back tears. “It was my fault.” her voice breaks. “I was supposed to drive him to school that day.” She covers her face with her hands and lets go, lets the tears fall. “He died, and I was supposed to drive him to school. It was my fault.” Her shoulders shake with sobs and Bellamy just wraps his arms around her, letting her cry. “It was my fault.” 

“It’s not your fault, princess,” he says. She buries her face in his shoulder, her arms coming up to wrap around his torso. “I promise you, it’s not your fault.” He holds her, and she tells him the rest, the concussion and the hospital stay and the coma. Tells him about the guilt. When he pulls back, he swipes his thumbs under her eyes, wiping away the tears. “Now drink your cocoa.” 

She chokes out a watery laugh. “Okay, bossy.” He hands her the mug and they share a look over the top of mountains of whipped cream. “Thank you,” she whispers. Her eyes sting from tears, but it’s the dull and permanent pain of memory, not the fresh sting of a moment. She hopes one day she’ll be able to talk about Wells one day without the rising lump in her throat, but for now, she has people like Bellamy. People who keep her safe. 

He reaches up and tucks a lock of hair that’s fallen out of her braid behind her ear. “For what?” he asks, and his eyes are so sweet, so earnest, so open and kind. Such a far cry from the broken, angry boy she met only months before. 

She kisses him once, short and soft. “For listening.” 

“Of course,” he replies. He puts his mug down on the counter and slides his hands around the back of her neck, pulling her forehead against his. “Always.” 

Bellamy offers her a pair of sweatpants, and they settle down on the couch to watch a movie which, of course, Clarke falls asleep halfway through. This time though, she’s asleep on his chest, with her arm tucked around his stomach, her head over his heart, which is a vast improvement over the last time. 

When the credits start to roll, he figures he’s allowed to ask if she’d rather sleep in his bed than then on the couch, mostly so they don’t have to deal with his insufferable roommates in the morning. She blinks awake, and her face is so adorable he almost doesn’t feel bad for waking her up. “What?” she grumbles. “Did I fall asleep again?” 

He kisses her on the forehead, feels her melt against him. “You always fall asleep.” 

“I do not,” she mumbles into his shirt. 

“What happened in the last thirty minutes, then?” he asks, teasing, and she rolls back to look at him, sticking out her tongue. 

“You’re not allowed to ask me that,” she says. 

“Why not?” The tilt of his smirk is practically unforgivable, the sleepiness in her bones starting to be replaced with something else. 

“Because.” she says, and pouts. His eyes flicker to the motion, and the spark lights in the room, the game beginning. “I don’t remember.” 

“Because you fell asleep,” he insists, catching on and very much approving of where this could be going. 

She wriggles against him until she’s laying on top of him, her elbows braced on either side of his head, her hair cascading around them. “I did not.” 

“I really --” He starts, but then she’s kissing him soundly, the way she speaks, direct and bold, the way she does everything. When she pulls away a few minutes later, he finishes his sentence, breathless. “-- beg to differ.” She grins, and it’s a wicked thing. But Bellamy can be wicked, too. 

He wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her tightly against him before flipping them both over, pushing her into the couch. Her heart races as a smirk curls at the corners of his mouth, his brown eyes dark and hungry through strands of curly hair. His expression is a challenge -- one she takes. Their next kiss is passion and heat, a dance of tongues as he moves above her, hips crushed together, fingers interwoven above Clarke’s head. His lips leave hers and travel to her neck, finding her favorite spot under the curve of her jaw. She gasps, and the noise reminds Bellamy that they’re on his living room couch. “Clarke,” he gasps, between desperate kisses, “Clarke, bedroom.”

He tries to get up and off her, but she has her hand fisted in the front of his shirt, and just pulls him down again. “In a minute,” she says, and kisses him again. He gets distracted, but her hands start to travel up the back of his shirt, nails digging into his shoulders. 

“Clarke,” his tone is almost a growl, a warning. “Bedroom.” 

“Make me,” she hisses against his mouth. He responds by pulling himself off of her (with a great deal of effort) and standing up, his chest heaving. Clarke’s eyes trace down his body and she bites her bottom lip when she reaches the growing bulge in his jeans. She flicks her eyebrows up and purses her lips before standing as well. He steps out of the way so she can slide past him to the hall, but instead she presses herself against him, sliding her hand up the side of his neck. Curling her fingers into his hair, her fingernails scrape against his scalp, and he exhales, just a bit, breaking the silence. She rises onto her tiptoes and presses her lips to his. This kiss is slow, but hasn’t lost any heat, all open mouths and gentle lips. 

His hands start on her hips and migrate down to her ass, and when she tries to pull him back down to the couch, he stoops and wraps his arms around her thighs. She gets the idea, jumping to wrap her legs around his waist. Smiling into the kiss as he carries her down the hall, she whispers; “That works.” 

His bed, thankfully, is made, for once, and his floor mostly clear. Clarke flung off her shirt somewhere in the hall, and tugs at his as he lays her down on the bedspread. “Are you sure?” he asks, after she pulls it over his head. 

“You don’t have to ask,” she whispers between kisses. She’s laying on her back, Bellamy on his side, pressed next to her. 

He smiles, but this grin is less feral, more soft. He brushes his nose against hers. “Always want to make sure,” he says. 

“You’re adorable,” she says. 

Instantly, Bellamy drags his fingers down her side, scraping his blunt nails over her waist. She shivers into his touch. “Is that so?” he asks, cocky. 

She surges toward him. “Shut up.” Pushing him onto his back, she straddles his hips and stands up on her knees. She pulls her hair up into a ponytail, and makes quick work of her bra. Bellamy’s mouth drops open, just a bit, as his hands come up to massage her breasts. She smiles, soft and teasing. 

“Fuck, princess,” he breathes. 

She slides her hands down his arms as he touches her, enjoying the awe in his eyes. “You gonna do that every time?” she says. 

Bellamy’s cock twitches at the thought of more times.  “As long as you keep giving me the privilege,” he says as he sits up to hold her. She settles down into his lap, hands roaming over bare chests and backs, up into hair and holding on to faces. They take the time they didn’t have before, Bellamy refreshing the marks on her breasts. She arcs her back as he touches her, pulling at his hair, her nails scraping his scalp. He starts to strain against the zipper of his jeans, and she grinds down on him, relishing the raspy moans he sighs against her mouth. 

He tries to flip them, get her underneath him again, but she resists the rotation, instead planting her hands on his shoulders and pushing him down. “No,” she says, and the catch in his breath is incredibly interesting. 

“What are --” he coughs as she continues to grind into him. “Baby, what are you doing?” She leans down to kiss him before traveling down his body, leaving her own mark on his collarbone. He sighs again at the bite of her teeth, an exhaled curse when he realizes she’s returning the favor. She glances up for confirmation once she reaches the waistband of his jeans, but then all he can manage is a ragged “yes, please, fuck, princess.”She gives him that wicked grin, tugging his jeans down to his ankles. 

She pulls him out of his boxers, stroking him to full hardness as he stutters and curses under his breath. The profanities streaming from his mouth only increase the heat between her legs, and she pushes her hips against the edge of the bed. He moans as she takes the head of his cock into her mouth, trying not to jerk his hips. He doesn’t know what he’s saying as she blows him, just a stream of whispers about how good she feels, how lucky he is. When he calls her princess again, she surges up to kiss him. 

He reaches down to slide his hand into her underwear, but she bats it away. “Inside me,” she mutters against his lips. “Now.” 

He’s a fan of this development. She tugs off her pants as he rummages in his nightstand for a condom. He also grabs a bottle of lube, since he’s barely touched her. She chuckles when she sees it. “What?” he asks, and she loves him like this, breathless and desperate, 

“So considerate,” she teases. 

In answer, he flips them over, his erection hot against her thigh, their noses brushing. “Oh yeah?” he asks. 

She reaches between him to slick him up, grinning at his gasp at her touch. “Yeah,” she says, but then lets out a gasp of her own as she guides him into her. He fucks her slow and gentle, holding her in a steady kiss, twining their fingers together above his head. He finishes before she does, so after he ties off the condom he dips his head to her cunt, and she comes twice on his tongue. Considerate, indeed. 

After, she traces patterns over his chest as he holds her, both breathless and sated. “You are,” he sighs and kisses her. “So… fucking hot.” 

She wriggles in closer, smiling against his chest. “If you say so.” 

He feels her lips curl on his skin and tilts his chin down to look at her. “Are you smug?’ She giggles and shakes her head. “You’re smug!” 

“Okay,” she relents, leaning up into a kiss. “I’m smug.” 

He looks over her shoulder at the clock. It’s late. His stomach leaps into his throat, thinking about what he’s about to ask. “Do you --” She looks up at him. “Would you --” he clears his throat, his hand stuttering where it traces up and down her back. “You can --” 

Finally, she puts him out of his misery. “I’ll stay,” she says, and when he looks down at her, her eyes are impossibly soft. Her mouth curls up on one side, teasing, “If that’s what you were trying to ask.” 

“Yeah,” he sighs, too relieved to be annoyed. And then. “You little shit.” 

She giggles and snuggles into his side. “You like me anyway.” 

He kisses her forehead. “Yeah,” he says, “I do.” They bask in the quiet afterglow for a second, but then, because Clarke is Clarke and she thinks too much, she starts to fidget. Bellamy sighs and props his chin on her forehead. “I can feel you thinking,” he says. 

“What are we gonna tell our friends?” she says. 

“Oh shit,” Bellamy sighs. The thought of Jasper jumping up and down like an excited child filters through his mind. Murphy, smug as hell. Miller with his ‘we’ll talk about this later’ eyebrows. Raven. “What are we gonna tell our friends?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE COMMENT   
> I HAVE A FINAL TODAY AND IT WOULD HELP ME GREATLY


	10. bittersweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy and Clarke, together, turn out to be pretty similar to Bellamy and Clarke, best friends. But like, with way more physical contact. Which is something Clarke is definitely about. Bellamy’s hands are incredible, and she can’t believe she spent all this time not holding them. His palms are callused, from what, she doesn’t know. She suspects he has a lot of stories she’s not telling her, not yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry I went to downtown DC yesterday so that's why I didn't post but here it is please enjoy and also comment comment comment

Raven is waiting in Clarke and Octavia’s room when she gets home. Before she can put her key in the lock, Octavia is standing in the doorway, looking extremely guilty. “Before you gut me,” she says, “she weaseled it out of me, I swear I didn’t tell her.” 

Clarke pushes past her, brows knitted together, until she sees Raven relaxing on Octavia’s bed, her bad leg propped up on a stack of pillows. “Hey,” Raven says, shit-eating grin on her face. “Where ya been?” 

Clarke blows out a breath. “This is not only rude but also possibly illegal,”  she says, throwing off her coat and hopping up onto her bed. 

“So the sex was great,” Raven presumes. Correctly, much to Clarke’s chagrin. Clarke rolls over and shoves her face into a pillow. “Am I right? I’m right, aren’t I?” She laughs. “I’m right.” 

“Octavia,” Clarke groans, muffled. “You’re the worst.” 

“I reiterate,” Octavia replies, settling into her desk chair. “Not my fault.” 

“It’s really not her fault,” Raven says, “I showed up and when you weren’t here, she said you were with Bellamy, and I deduced after that.” 

“As far as you know, we’re just friends,” Clarke attempts defending herself, but one look at Raven’s smug face and she knows it’s useless. 

“Yeah but your roommate here folds like a cheap suit,” Raven says, and Octavia has the decency to look ashamed. Raven crosses her arms and settles into Octavia’s pillows. “So,” she says, grinning. “Tell us the story.” 

 

After Bellamy gets back from driving Clarke home, he comes back to all four of his roommates in his living room. They’re not doing anything, just waiting for him. Except Jasper, who’s fiddling with a Rubik’s Cube. “Guys,” Bellamy says, “You recognize this is creepy, right?” 

Miller is standing with his arms crossed in front of the television, because he’s a drama queen. “Blake,” he says, “You cannot upset the delicate balance of this household.” 

“Miller, we’re five dudes in a shitty house,” Bellamy answers, punctuating his point by chucking his jacket over a chair in the kitchen. “Not a household.”

Miller holds up a hand. “Don’t interrupt.” Monty looks at Bellamy with a wry smile, as if in apology. “We went through this when Jasper got a girlfriend --” Jasper looks up with a shit-eating grin at the mention of his name, like he’s proud of himself. “So now we go through it with you.” 

“Miller I really don’t think --” 

“Bellamy Blake!” Miller cries, over him. He paces across the living room. His socks are both rainbow, but mismatched. Miller reaches behind the TV and pulls out Jasper’s plastic lightsaber. 

Jasper tries to jump up from the couch. “I’ve been looking for that!” he yells. Murphy reaches out silently and puts a hand on his chest, gently pushing him back down. Jasper gives him a baleful look, but stays still, continuing to fiddle with the rubik’s cube. 

Miller flicks the lightsaber down, the purple plastic protesting from years of use. “You have disturbed the routine of this household!” He points the toy in Bellamy’s face. “What do you have to say for yourself?” 

Bellamy drops his head against the back of the couch. “Dude, if you wanted to gossip you could have just asked me about Clarke.” 

Miller looks vaguely disappointed before he just collapses into the armchair next to the TV.  “So it is her, then.” 

Bellamy thinks about Clarke, asleep on his chest, her soft, curly hair in wisps across her face, fluttering with her breath. He smiles, and Murphy rolls his eyes. “Yeah,” Bellamy says. “It’s her.” 

Murphy groans. “If you’re done being dramatic,” he says to Miller, “Can I go?” 

Bellamy and Clarke, together, turn out to be pretty similar to Bellamy and Clarke, best friends. But like, with way more physical contact. Which is something Clarke is definitely about. Bellamy’s hands are incredible, and she can’t believe she spent all this time not holding them. His palms are callused, from what, she doesn’t know. She suspects he has a lot of stories she’s not telling her, not yet. 

But she trusts him. And that’s what makes him different, than any person she’s dated, any friend she’s had, since Wells, anyway. He’s always there, when she needs him. He listens, when she’s crying about her dad, late at night. He just holds her, looks at her with those deep brown, endless eyes. He does what Octavia told her he would do -- he takes care of her. And every time, it’s something small, something sweet. A playlist he made for her, a note left on the table after he leaves the library, a new song he learned on his guitar. Every little gesture comes with the smallest, boyish smile, and she falls a little more in love. 

He doesn’t really know why he’s so sweet to her. He knows he doesn't have to be. But Clarke makes it easy. She’s got something in her that simultaneously intimidates and entrances him. Every time they have a conversation, he learns more about how she sees the world, how she interacts with it. He learns that he was almost right, at first. She isn’t nice, or kind. But she is fierce. And noble. She has this incredible sense of who she is and what she wants, and she’d die for the people she loves. And he’s starting to love her. 

Winter melts into Spring, and they spend as much of their time in the library as they can, with finals approaching. They bring Harper from Clarke’s anatomy class with them to game night, once, after meeting up with her there. The next week Monty brings along Monroe, from his physics class, and Clarke’s most gleeful moments come from meddling in their budding romance. For the first time since he’s been in college, Bellamy feels like he can relax. With the increase in his financial aid, Bellamy’s able to work less and study harder. His grades are good, his friends are geeky and wild, his girlfriend is beautiful and the most amazing person he’s met. He’s happy. 

Clarke is, too. Or at least, she tries to be. She focuses on what’s good in her life. Bellamy, and their friends. Her coursework, which is difficult but rewarding. She tries to live in moments, rather than confront the truth of her parents, and the tragedy she knows is approaching. She’s been spending less time at the hospital lately, as her father’s condition worsens. She feels guilty about it, but he’s barely awake, nowadays. It gets harder for him to breathe on his own, and he has to wear a machine at night. He vomits blood if he’s not given the right meds on time. To see her father, who used to be a proud and strong man, shaking and near tears -- it almost kills her. 

She doesn’t often talk about it. She only mentions her visits to her father in passing, and when memories come up, she tells the short versions of the stories, swallowing down the tears that threaten. She volunteers information only once, in the early hours of morning. They’re resting skin-to-skin, Bellamy’s hands tracing now-familiar patterns over her shoulders, her hands warm and comforting on his chest. 

“Tomorrow is six months,” she whispers. He pulls away so she can look at him, but she just nudges back in, pressing her forehead against his chest. “The doctors only gave him six months.” her voice is small, and breaking, like when she told him about her family in the first place. Her breathing starts to pick up in pace, and her hand wraps around one of his biceps, her hands small and pale against his skin. Bellamy stays quiet, just stroking her hair, just listening. “It’s any day now,” she says, and chokes on a sob. “They only gave him six months.” 

His heart breaks a little, watching her cry. It’s not like he’s never had to deal with a loved one in pain, but it never gets easier. “I know you’re scared,” he whispers. “I know it’s terrifying.” 

Her body starts to shake with the force of her grief, held back for months. A tidal wave, finally free. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she sobs. “Bellamy,” she clutches at him, her tears hot against his skin. “I don’t know what to do.” 

“You have to let him go,” he says, and tears prick at the back of his eyes, too. He’s been through this, and he wouldn’t wish it on anyone. His mother was practically a stranger when she died; he can only imagine what Clarke must be going through. “I know you don’t want to,” he whispers into her hair, squeezing his eyes shut and she squeezes him close. “And you know it will be hard.” She lets out the tiniest squeak. “But you have to,” a sob builds in his chest, having her so broken and so close, and him unable to do anything about it. “You have to say goodbye, you have to let him go.” 

She cries herself to sleep in his arms, that night. In the morning, he tries to check on her, but she swipes the leftover mascara out from under her eyes, gets dressed, and goes to class. He doesn’t ask her to talk about it again. She visits the hospital that afternoon, and when Bellamy gets home, he finds Octavia and Raven cuddled on his couch, Clarke in between them, a bottle of jack on the table. Murphy is sitting on the floor, leaned against her legs. There’s a cartoon playing on the television, but none of them are watching it. When they notice Bellamy, Octavia scoots to the end and lets her brother settle down next to Clarke. 

Nobody asks any questions, and Clarke doesn’t speak until an hour after Bellamy’s wrapped his arms around her. Miller and Monty are home by that point, too, and they settle in until the couch is a mess of limbs, everyone there, waiting. Listening. Just, being present, for a grieving friend.  “I tried to say goodbye,” she says. Her voice is flat, the same tone she used to use when she fought with Bellamy, when she didn’t want to hear anything else. “But he said I didn’t owe him anything. He said --” finally, her voice cracks. “He said they were just waiting for me to be ready.” 

“They’re letting him go,” Monty whispers. Clarke nods and falls into Bellamy’s chest, immediately covered by Raven and Miller, a heavy blanket of love and support. Her sobs are muffled by his shirt, and the air feels wrong, somehow. Like there’s another world, out there, where suffering like this doesn’t happen. 

They get the call at 8 on a Wednesday morning. Bellamy drives her to the hospital. She’s wearing his old white lacrosse sweatshirt, and a pair of old leggings. Her socks are purple, and they match her chipped nails. He notices because he wonders what went through her mind as she got dressed. What do you wear, to watch your father die? She doesn’t say anything on the drive. At some point, she reaches out over the gear shift for his hand, playing with his fingers as she stares out the window. He pulls into the parking lot and she clings to his arm as they walk into the building. 

They reach Jake’s floor and stop outside the double doors. Bellamy steps towards them, but Clarke stops dead, jerking him backwards. Her blue eyes are huge, and it’s the first time he’s ever seen her so afraid. His heart aches with it. “I don’t --” she starts, but he stops her. 

Pulling her in close and to the side, he wraps his arms around her waist and whispers against her temple. “It’s okay to be afraid,” he says, “and it’s okay to be angry, and sad.” She nods against his shoulder, but she’s shaking. “I’ll be wherever you need me to be,” he says. “Wherever, whenever you want me.” He kisses her hair. “I’ll be there.” 

“I know,” she replies, her voice raspy. “I know.” 

“You want me to come with you?” he asks, when she turns to look at the ominous double doors. 

“I don’t --” her breath starts to speed up. 

“Hey,” Bellamy says, “Hey, it’s okay. I’ll come,” he smooths his hands up and down her back. “I’ll come and if you don’t want me, you say so, alright?” 

Clarke’s eyes are red, her temples throbbing. There’s no rules for this, no protocol. She doesn’t know what’s supposed to be happening. “Okay,” she bites her lip and nods, short and fast. “Okay.” 

The hallway outside Jake’s room is crowded with family, and Clarke’s steps noticeably slow as they get closer. It’s mostly middle-aged and older folk, dressed like office workers in somber colors. They all turn to look at Clarke as she approaches, and she grips his arm in a vice, her knuckles going white where their fingers are intertwined. An older woman, probably Clarke’s grandmother, scans her outfit and sneers. Bellamy feels a wave of violent rage surge in his chest. 

A woman in a flowing purple dress bustles forward and envelops Clarke in her ample bosom. “Oh, darling,” she says. Her voice is lilting and kind, and she’s the only person here wearing the smallest amount of color. “Oh my sweetheart, I’m so sorry.” 

Clarke has the tiniest of smiles when she emerges from the woman’s caftan. “Aunt Margot,” she says, “This is Bellamy, my boyfriend.” He still gets the smallest thrill when she introduces him like that. It feels foolish, but he loves her. He knows that, now. He steps forward and shakes the woman’s hand. Clarke introduces him around, to the six or so adults drinking shitty coffee in polyester blazers and loafers, like they’re going to go to work after they watch a man die. Bellamy decides that he really, really hates these people. 

Abby emerges from the room with a man and a teenage girl. The man’s eyes are rimmed red under silver wire frames, and he’s holding a little too tightly to the girl’s shoulder for it just to be for guidance. The girl shouts Clarke’s name and launches into her arms. Abby introduces both of them as an uncle and a cousin, Madi. “Ben is Jake’s younger brother,” she explained. “They were always close. Clarke is practically like Madi’s older sister.” Bellamy had heard stories about Madi, and he had really hoped that the first time they met would have been under better circumstances. 

Abby’s talking too much and too fast, like if she just keeps spewing words he won’t notice her bloodshot eyes or the bags under her eyes. Bellamy would give her a hug, if it wasn't weird. He wants to tell her she’s allowed to grieve, that she doesn’t have to be strong. Abby pulls Clarke into a tight hug before ushering her into the room. Clarke reaches out and grabs Bellamy’s hand, and he follows along. 

The smell of the room hits him first. It’s clinical and cloying, antiseptic and plastic thick in the air. Bellamy’s heart drops to his feet when he sees Jake Griffin. When he met Clarke’s father before, he could see the echo of strength in his shoulders, see the man he used to be in the wrinkles by his mouth, the echo of a smile in the blue eyes Clarke shares. There is none of that now. He’s laying on his back in the bed, skinny and frail, his fingers spindly and pale, even against the white hospital sheets. He’s wearing a bipap mask, so they can’t see his face, but his eyes flood with emotion as his daughter walks in. Bellamy feels her fingers redouble their grip on his. 

“Hi, Daddy,” she says, her voice not breaking, but already broken. He waves, just a little, and then makes a complicated hand gesture. “Oh,” Clarke says, and then sniffs, wiping her free hand under her eyes. “You remember Bellamy?” He nods. “We’re dating now,” Clarke says, clutching his arm. She hasn’t moved any closer to the bed, and Bellamy’s pretty sure she’s too afraid. The mask on his face moves, his cheeks pushing up under his eyes -- a smile. More hand gestures, and this time Bellamy realizes it’s ASL they’re using. “Yeah, he’s so sweet to me, Daddy. He’s perfect.” He nudges her forward, and she edges toward the chair, eventually settling down. Clarke lays her head down on the mattress, and her father smooths his hand over her face. Her shoulders tighten, and then start to shake. Stepping up behind her, Bellamy puts his hands on her shoulders. 

“It’s good to see you again, sir,” he says. After Jake says something, Clarke chuckles, watery. 

“He says to call him Jake,” she says. 

Bellamy smiles too, soft. “Alright then, Jake.” 

With shaking hands, Jake waves Abby over, and she helps him wrestle off the mask and get a cannula placed under his nose. “That’s better,” he says, and his voice is painfully raspy. “It’s good to see you again, too. I’m glad you did as Abby told you.” 

Clarke sits up and looks over her shoulder at him, a question in her eyes. “I don’t take care of her sir -- Jake.” He smiles down at her, rubbing her shoulders. “She takes care of me.” 

She jerks her head around to glare at her mother. “You told him to --” she starts, outraged. 

“Bellamy.” Jake cuts her off. “May I have a moment alone with you, young man?” His stomach flips over, but he nods. Abby looks alarmed, but Jake waves her off. “It’s alright, darling,” he says, and then to Clarke, “Don’t worry, doodlebug, I’m not going to shoot him.” Bellamy admires Jake, for having a sense of humor even on his deathbed. A wave of sadness overwhelms him when he realizes this is probably the first and last conversation with the man. He would have liked to know him, for real. 

Clarke shoots Bellamy a concerned look when she stands to leave, but he just kisses her forehead. “It’s okay,” he whispers. 

She watches over her shoulder as Abby leads her out of the room, and then Bellamy is alone with Jake. He gestures for Bellamy to sit, so he does. “How long have you and my daughter been together?” he asks. 

“Not long,” Bellamy answers, his heart thumping in his hears. “Two months, I think. Maybe.” 

“But you love her,” Jake says. It’s not a question, just a statement, and it hits Bellamy in the gut with the truth of it. He does. He’s known for a while, ever since that stupid game of Monopoly, but he hasn’t told her yet. He doesn’t want to scare her off. Slowly, he nods. Jake smiles, slow but strong, with the air of a man that’s seen real joy. And real tragedy, too. “Good,” he says. “That’s good.” He sighs. “Abby and I were never around much, when she was little. We just got busy, I suppose.” He shakes his head, as best he can. “Nothing rips me up, more than that.” 

“She talks about you all the time,” Bellamy offers, doing his best to assuage the guilt of a man counting his last breaths. “She told me a story about eating jelly beans during  a thunderstorm, just last night. And the other day, about your old cat named Marvin. She says you’re her best friend.” 

Jake’s smile turns dreamy as he loses himself in memories. “Good,” he sighs again. “That’s good.” He seems to drift off, just for a second, his eyes going unfocused as he gazes out the window. Spring sunshine lays in stripes across the bedspread, warming Bellamy’s hands, and he has to clear his throat to get Jake to refocus. He reaches out and puts his hand over Bellamy’s. They’re still rough, warm, and dry. Still the Jake he met before. “You need to hang on to her,” he says, suddenly lucid again. Bellamy must look confused, because Jake goes on. “She’s going to self destruct after --” his voice catches. “After this.” He takes a deep breath before going on. “There’s nothing Abby or I can do about it. Clarke doesn’t deal with her feelings well --” Bellamy almost laughs, with how much he knows about that. “-- and this is going to be hard. You have to hang on.” 

Bellamy still isn’t totally sure what he’s hearing. “Of course,” he says, “I’ll be there for her, any way she needs me. She knows that.” 

Jake shakes his head, like Bellamy is a particularly dull elementary school kid, still not getting it. “She won’t ask,” he says, and there’s a ragged edge of grief in his voice. “She’ll try so hard to be strong, like she thinks she’s supposed to be.” He squeezes Bellamy’s hand, looks him in the eye. Jake doesn’t have much left he needs to say, but this, this he needs to make sure Bellamy knows. “Remind her she’s allowed to mourn. Remind her she can be weak. Bellamy, hold on.” 

Bellamy feels very much like he’s on the edge of a pit he’s climbed a fence to get to. He knows he probably shouldn’t be here, knows it’s dangerous. He feels a little stupid to be here in the first place. The intensity of Jake’s gaze scares him. But then, Abby comes back in, chattering away, Clarke slinking in behind her. The first thing she looks to, after her dad, is him, and it reminds him how big his feelings for her really are. He just wants to hold her, make the rest of the world go away. Make her pain go away. 

Bellamy stands to let her sit, and she immediately takes her dad’s hand again, holding it against her face. He smiles softly, stroking his thumb over his cheekbone. Jake looks up and nods in Bellamy’s direction. He nods in response, and puts a hand on Clarke’s arm. 

“You hold on to this one, sweetheart,” Jake says, and Clarke smiles through tears. 

“I will,” she responds. 

“You promise, kiddo?” He asks with a teasing tone, but it’s a serious question. 

“Yeah Daddy,” she says, and then, in a whisper, “I promise,” 

Jake Griffin dies at 9:43 AM on April 12th. He’s holding his daughter’s hand, and his wife is crying, and his brother and niece are weeping in the hall. There’s a parade of relatives in the last few minutes of his life, and it hurts to watch people who have clearly never cared about Jake or his family a day in their lives force cold tears into their eyes and offer empty words of sympathy. Clarke doesn’t pay attention to a single one of them, just focuses on her father, talking over them, nonsense mixed with real sentiment and her favorite stories. 

When Jake exhales for the last time, Clarke won’t let go of him. She shakes and sobs and squeezes his hand over and over again. “Daddy,” she’s shouting, “Daddy please, wake up!” It shatters Bellamy’s heart. Abby has to help him pull her away, to let the doctors by. In the hall, she sobs into the front of Bellamy’s shirt, loud, ugly, broken cries, and it hurts even more, knowing what she’s feeling, understanding her pain. It tears him in two. Madi clings to Clarke’s back, crying and refusing to let go. 

Finally, once the relatives have gone, Bellamy’s able to get her out of the hospital, and back to his place. She crawls into bed, and he follows her. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t snuggle back into him or hold his hand. She just stares at his wall, drifting in and out of sleep. Occasionally, she cries, rolling over and pressing her face into his shirt. He holds her as tight as he can, and doesn’t let go. 

The next morning, she tries to go to class. Bellamy wakes up to her leaning into his closet to grab a towel, and he rolls over, smiling. “Hey,” he says, feeling warm and loose from sleep. 

She barely looks over her shoulder. “Hey,” she says. It’s short and cold, and Bellamy can tell something is wrong. He pulls himself up and catches her wrist as she turns towards the door. 

“Clarke,” he says, serious, “What are you doing?” 

Her face remains still, and for the first time in a while, her eyes are completely unreadable, stone cold and blank. “I’m going to take a shower,” she says, like he’s stupid. Fear rears its head in the pit of Bellamy’s stomach. He hasn’t seen her like this since before they reconciled, and it’s terrifying him. 

“It’s 7:30 in the morning,” He’s barely awake, and trying to understand what exactly is going on. 

“I have class.”

“Princess,” he says, his voice so soft it threatens to crack her structured exterior. “Please, come back to bed.” Her expression staying frighteningly blank, she pulls her wrist out of his grip and heads towards the hall. Bellamy scrambles after her, throwing off the blankets and ignoring the bite of the cold morning on his bare chest. “Clarke,” he pleads, but she shuts the bathroom door in his face. “Clarke!” he raises his voice, and raps his fist against the door. “Clarke, talk to me.”

“It’s fine, Bellamy,” shes says through the door, not without annoyance. “Just leave me alone.”

“Yeah,” he mutters to himself. “Definitely not gonna do that.” He hears her put her music on full blast before the shower turns on. She doesn’t want to listen. He goes back to his room to put on a hoodie, and then settles with a book in the hallway outside the bathroom. He straightens up when he hears the shower turn off, and Clarke appears a few minutes later, fully dressed, hair wet and limp around her face. She looks young and scared, but above all of that, exhausted. She stops short when she sees him sitting there. 

“What are you doing.” It’s not a question. 

He stands up. “Please --” he starts, but Clarke pushes past him, back into the bedroom. “Please don’t --” 

Clarke whips around. “Don’t what?” Her voice is still at a normal volume, but her chest is heaving, like she might start screaming at him at any moment. “Don’t go to class? Don’t live my life?” Her eyes are a swirling mix of anger and grief and confusion, and he knows she doesn’t want to deal with any of it -- doesn’t know how -- so she wants to pretend it isn’t happening, to hole up behind her defenses until the storm outside goes away. 

“Is that what you want from me?” she’s shouting now, and tears are starting to well up in her eyes. “You want me to just curl up in bed for a week, give up? So you can take care of me?” Her eyes settle on anger, and direct it at him. “Big hero, big strong Bellamy, here to take care of the damsel and save the day?” She ties her hair up in a messy bun, starts moving around his room, packing up her stuff. “Well I’m not a fucking damsel, Bellamy Blake. And I’m not gonna stay here because you think you can fucking save me.” 

He just waits, just watches. He doesn’t want her to calm down -- she needs to feel. She needs to let all of it out, every single bit of rage at things she can’t control. And if she wants to direct it at him, he’ll let her. He doesn’t stop her until she goes to push past him in the doorway. He steps to the side, blocking her path. She looks up at him, her blue eyes on fire. “Move.” 

“Clarke,” he says, keeping his voice as even as he can. “You can leave, I’m not going to stop you.” She moves to push past him again, but he puts his hands on her shoulders, a gentle barrier. “But you need to listen, okay?” He traces his fingers over her cheek, lets his hand fall when she pulls her face away, her mouth a thin, angry line. “Please,” he begs, “just listen.” 

She looks at him then, and there’s cracks starting to form in the stone walls around her mind. “Five minutes,” she says, and drops her bag, falling back to sit on his bed. She’s stubborn as hell, but it’s why he loves her. And he does. He knows that now. All that’s left is to tell her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BITCH YOU THOUGHT I WAS GONNA LET YOU OUTTA HERE WITHOUT SOME ANGST?? HAHAHAHA!! Yes, I did have fun writing this, thanks for asking.  
> comments make u a writer's best friend


	11. love me and learn me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Silence hangs between them, heavy and dangerous. He looks at her, but she refuses to meet his eyes. Taking a shaky breath, she speaks again, her voice flat but breaking. “What’s your point,” she says, and means it to be offhanded, indifferent, but instead comes out like she’s really asking -- for a truth she hasn’t yet grasped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy fUCK I DID IT   
> this fic has been a kindergartner's lifetime in the making and I DID IT I FINISHED IT I WROTE AN ENDING LOOK IT HAS ONE   
> I cannot DESCRIBE how elated I am to have this done. I've never finished a long-form fic in my life, much less something with a word count like this (not quite a novel by nano standards but close) and I'm like -- not a real writer -- so this is really really a huge accomplishment, not only to get this far but also to have an eNDING!!!  
> anyway. You guys get this chapter as a christmas present bc I'll be travelling on wednesday and it's getting posted at this hour bc I'm just So Damn Excited that it's done.   
> have fun, kiddos!

Bellamy sits down in his desk chair, his thoughts a mess. He loves Clarke, and he trusts her. But this is a story he’s never told anyone. His hands are shaking, just the slightest bit, and he knits his fingers together to prevent her from noticing. “I told you about how my mom died,” he says, and Clarke nods. “And you asked me where I went, after I left Pike with Octavia.” She nods again, and sighs, like she’s impatient for him to get to the point. It almost hurts, but he keeps reminding himself that her father just died, that it’s hard to truly understand the motivation behind anything she does. “I didn’t want to tell you then,” he says, “But you deserve to know, now.” 

“Bellamy, I have class,” she says, but she’s fidgeting, and won’t look at him. 

“I went back to Chicago,” he says, in lieu of a plea for her to keep listening. “Where we’d run from when I was a kid.” At that, she looks up, and the walls are crumbling. He can see them, rubble tumbling into an ocean of blue. “I wanted to make the son of a bitch pay, the one who sold her the drugs that took her away from us.” He’s choking out the words, and Clarke reaches out, takes his twisting hands. “I knew it wouldn’t fix anything. I knew it wouldn’t. But I wanted --” His voice cracks. “I was so -- I was so angry. And I wanted someone to pay.” He looks up at her now, and he wants her to understand, to know why she can’t just shut down and let her anger take over. 

His voice cracks. There’s charcoal underneath her fingernails. His hands are so dry his knuckles have started to crack. They’re broken, dusty people, held together with a breath and a kiss. “I bought a gun,” he says. Her fingers tighten on his. “And I staked out the corner where I knew my mom used to buy her dope in this -- this ratty old dodge charger I found in a junkyard.”  Clarke breathes in, short and sharp. Her hands twitch, but she doesn’t pull away. “I waited all day.” 

“You didn’t --” 

He shakes his head. “I didn’t hurt anyone. The guy went past me, and he was -- God, Clarke. He was just a kid. I was only sixteen, but he was probably my age, maybe a little older.” She looks up at him, and the walls in her eyes are gone, blown to dust. She looks exhausted, concerned, like she’s been ripped to shreds. He knows it’s hard for her to hear this, but she has to know. “I spent the next two years trying to make something of myself. I re-enrolled in the high school I dropped out of. I raised my GPA as much as I could to get scholarships to a good school.” Clarke’s eyes start to water, and she swipes at them. He’s breaking through her armor. “But I never forgot what I wanted to do. What I was going to do. I never forgot where I’d been.” 

Silence hangs between them, heavy and dangerous. He looks at her, but she refuses to meet his eyes. Taking a shaky breath, she speaks again, her voice flat but breaking. “What’s your point,” she says, and means it to be offhanded, indifferent, but instead comes out like she’s really asking -- for a truth she hasn’t yet grasped. 

He heaves a deep breath, grateful that she’s still here, knowing he has to be careful with how he proceeds. “My point,” he says on an exhale, “Is that I know it’s hard. It’s going to be hard and it’s never going to stop. But you can’t just shut yourself away and pretend everything is fine, because you’ll end up with so much anger that you won’t know what to do with. Beyond hurting yourself, you might hurt someone else, too.” 

“Why do you care?” she asks, her voice so dark, so beyond hope, that it breaks his heart all over again. 

“Because,” he says, his heart racing. He reaches to brush his fingers across her face, and this time she lets him, leaning almost imperceptibly into his touch. His next words are almost a whisper, meant for her and her alone. “I love you.” Three words, that mean so much. 

Mean  _ I can’t let you do that to yourself _ and  _ I need you too much  _  and  _ please stay just stay just please stay here with me _ and she hears it -- hears all of it. She finally, finally looks up, and her blue eyes are glistening with tears. She doesn’t need to apologize. He knows, and she loves him for it. Loves him for every second and every thought he gives to her, for every inch of the man he is. “I --” she chokes out. 

“I know,” he says. She falls forward, her forehead landing on his shoulder, her body shaking with massive sobs. He smooths his hands up and down her back, drawing her closer, almost in tears himself. “I’m here,” he keeps whispering into her hair. “I’m here.” She stays home from class. 

Bellamy wants to let his professors know there’s been a death in the family -- which isn’t really a lie -- and take the week off with Clarke, but she knows how he feels about his education, and what both he and Octavia have sacrificed for it, so she makes him go to class. He recruits all of their friends to create what essentially amounts to a scheduled Clarke Watch, where one of them in his house at all times, when he’s not. 

Murphy actually steps up more than any of Bellamy’s other roommates, making Clarke go grocery shopping with him or helping her cook dinner when she’s been glued to the couch too long. Monty lets her sit, wide-eyed and silent, while he plays MySims, her head in his lap. Jasper does the same, but keeps up a never-ending stream of dialogue, Clarke huffing every once in a while, a poor semblance of a conversation. 

Even Harper and Monroe, who haven’t been in the group long, agree to stay for a few hours. Harper makes her lasagna, cookies, and two pies, because she’s from Iowa and the way she shows her love is by making people food. 

Monroe brings a fifth of tequila and the new Call of Duty game, and it’s the first time Clarke smiles since her Dad died. Bellamy comes home on Friday to giggling from the living room, and his heart soars. Clarke is sitting next to Monroe on the floor. Clarke’s one of the lucky ones who only gets happy when she gets drunk, so Monroe’s usual coping mechanism actually works brilliantly, for once. When Bellamy walks in, Clarke is leaning on Monroe’s shoulder, wheezing and in tears from laughter. Monroe’s face is one of confusion. They’re laughing, but it looks like they’re not sure why. Either way, Bellamy will take it. Happy Clarke is Happy Clarke. He’ll worry about the cause later. 

“Hey guys,” he says, dropping his bag on the floor and hanging his jacket up on the rack. He’s the only housemate who does, and he has to kick sweatshirts and jackets out of the way just to have a place to take off his shoes. 

Clarke gasps audibly from the floor and whips around, her ponytail hitting Monroe in the face, and they recoil comically. Her blue eyes are big as saucers. Turning to Monroe, she smiles like a dope. “My baby’s here!” she cries. Monroe nods, clearly at a loss for what to say, and Bellamy laughs. 

“Hey, princess,” he says, sinking down on the couch. She hops up next to him and throws her arms around him, pushing him onto his back. His arms come up around her waist as she nuzzles into his neck. A smile flirts around the corners of Monroe’s mouth, the closest they come to any kind of real facial expression. “How was your day?” he directs the question at Monroe. 

“She’s okay,” they say, in their gravelly voice, already gathering their things to leave. They know what he’s actually asking. “She kicked my ass in zombie mode.” 

Clarke chuckles against Bellamy’s neck. “Hell yeah I did.” 

He lets out a breath he’s been holding all day. “Good,” he says. And then again, in a whisper, to himself. “Good.” Kissing Clarke on the forehead, he disentangles himself and walks Monroe out to their car.  

“Seriously though,” he asks them, scratching the back of his head. “How is she?” 

Monroe leans back against their pickup, lights a cigarette. “Seriously,” they repeat, after taking a long drag. “She did okay.” They flick their ashes with rough fingers, bitten nails. Monroe is made out of lumber scraps and salvaged screws, stood through rain and wind and storms they refuse to talk about, but have made them strong. “Less stony silence. No crying, but that might just have been because it was me today, and not you.” 

Bellamy raises his eyebrows. “What does that mean?” 

“You’re the only one who’s seen her cry.” Monroe, like his sister, has a talent for making him feel like an idiot. Bellamy actually, physically, recoils. That doesn’t even seem true. He tells Monroe this, but they shake their head. “Clarke is a goddamn stone wall to the rest of us, Blake,” she says. “It’s a miracle you cracked her in the first place.” They take another drag, tilt back their head and blow the smoke out into the night air. “You and her --” they shake their head. “You got somethin.” They don’t elaborate, and Bellamy gets the sense they might punch him if he asks. 

“Thanks,” he says, “I think.” 

They give them a sideways look and take one last long drag off their cigarette before stamping it out. “Keep her safe, Blake,” they say. “And don’t let her go.” And with that cryptic warning, they climb into the cab of their truck and drive off. Bellamy reflects that Monroe would do very well as a character in a Wes Anderson movie. 

Clarke is absorbed in a different game when he goes back in, so he doesn’t bother her as he goes about making dinner. Her hair is in a wild mountain on top of her head, barely held in check by a blue scrunchie. She’s wearing an old lacrosse t-shirt of his, and the silver of her necklace glints against her pale skin. She hasn’t looked him in the eye for days. 

He brings the mac and cheese he makes to the couch, and hands it wordlessly to Clarke, who pauses her game and settles in to eat it without speaking, as well. This has been their normal for the past week, but a few minutes later, Clarke looks up, and talks to him. “Monroe gave me a talking to today,” she says, and when he looks at her, he’s surprised to see her eyes, blue and bright, focused on him. 

“Is that so?” he asks, careful. 

“They told me --” She shifts uncomfortably, tucks a stray curl behind her ear. “They told me to hang on to you.” She sounds just -- just so tired. Tired of fighting every step of the way. Tired of fighting with herself. 

Bellamy chuckles, lifts his arm so she can snuggle in beneath it. “They told me the same thing.” 

She looks up at him. “So we hold on to each other?” 

He nods and leaves a kiss on her hairline. “We hold on to each other.” 

And they do. Miracle of miracles, Clarke manages to go back to class and finish her finals. She doesn’t do as well as she likes, but Bellamy makes sure she considers the extenuating circumstances, and she gets through it. Bellamy walks across the stage in a scratchy, heinous, yellow gown and everyone’s there to take mocking pictures after the ceremony. Abby even brings Madi and Ben, and Madi and Clarke take a photo kissing each of Bellamy’s cheeks, followed by another where they’re miming throwing up on to his shoes. He loves his girlfriend and her weird ass family. 

But his favorite photo is one where he and Miller have their arms over each other shoulders, and they’re both grinning like idiots, diplomas clutched in front of them. It’s Clarke’s favorite too. She tells him it’s the one picture that really shows what the day had meant; what he had accomplished. She decides to start a watercolor version as a surprise for his next birthday. 

Things get better. It’s not right away, and it’s not all the time. She still has days when she goes stone-cold and refuses to speak to anyone, and they fight -- just like they always have -- but they never leave angry; Bellamy (and their friends) make sure of that. And as she heals, she helps him, too. She encourages him to tell her stories from her childhood, to work on helping Octavia gain her independence, rather than watching her every move, work on his relationship to the memory of his mother. They heal each other. 

Clarke moves into his house at the start of the summer; she’d decided to take the summer off from working, to decide if she really wanted to go through with med school. She calls it “the ultimate white rich girl move” and Murphy earns a flick to the forehead for agreeing with her. But Abby helps with rent and food, finally relenting as she realizes that her daughter may not be everything she expected, and that’s okay. She decides halfway through July to switch from Biochemistry to double major in Art and Education. It adds a few years to her college plan, but Bellamy’s staying on at Arkadia to do his masters, and she figures they’ll get through it together; the way they do everything.

They’re washing dishes when she turns to her him, eyes wide, and says “I never said it back.” 

He nearly drops a plate. “What?” 

“In April,” she says. “When I--” she swallows. “and you -- you told me you loved me for the first time.” He looks at her blankly. “I never said it back,” she repeats. 

“Oh, princess,” he sighs. He puts the plate aside and wipes his soapy hands off on a dishtowel before sliding them around her waist and kissing her forehead. “You didn’t have to.” 

“But you knew, right?” she asks, her hands coming up to frame his face. He brushes his thumbs against the bare skin of her hips, exposed by her purple crop top, and pretends to think. 

“Knew what?” he asks, mainly to make her laugh. She swats at his chest. He chuckles and presses his forehead to hers. “Of course I knew,” he whispers, and then tilts his chin forward, capturing his lips with hers. 

They’ve kissed a thousand times by now -- hellos and goodbyes, good mornings and good nights. ‘You’re so cute’ and ‘fuck me now’ and ‘don’t leave just yet’ and ‘just because.’ But these kind of kisses are her favorite. The kind where she can feel the beat of Bellamy’s heart and the rhythm of his soul in every press of lips, every brush of his tongue. When he lights her on fire with the sweep of his broad hands and the strong circle of his arms. When she’s the flowing water to his steadfast earth and he makes her feel like they could make anything grow. He kisses her and it feels like sunlight and sand between her toes and earth in her fingers and leaves brushing through her hair. He kisses her and he feels like home. 

“I love you, Bellamy Blake,” she whispers when they part. 

“I love you, Clarke Griffin,” he says, and kisses her again. Strong and firm and never ending. 

Things get better. She marks a path to graduation. He gets a promising student teacher position at a local high school, and a tentative offer for him after he graduates to teach in Boston. Life goes on. Monty and Jasper move out of the house to their own house a little further out of town -- a better place for their moonshine still and illegal firework-making business. Lincoln gets Octavia a job at a martial-arts gym that he manages. Bellamy and Clarke watch movies and do homework together and make love. They still fight, but they hold on to each other. They don’t let go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE IT IS WE REACHED THE ENDING TOGETHER!!  
> If you've been reading this fic -- I cannot thank you enough. Your kudos and comments have meant the wORLD to me. Thanks for going on this journey with me for the first time! Leave me your parting thoughts (specifics are always great) and drop me a prompt or a note on tumblr if you feel like it (still at greenishgriffin).   
> honestly, honestly, honestly reader --   
> thank you /so/ much. I couldn't have done it without you.

**Author's Note:**

> it's scientifically proven that leaving kudos and comments makes me write faster. hmu @ greenishgriffin on tumblr if you wanna cry about these dumb idiots.


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